With trumpet-tongue, for vengeance call
Upon each guilty head
That drowns, mid revelry and brawls,
Remembrance of the dead.
_Tho'_ faint from fighting--wounded--wan,
To camp you'll turn your feet,
And no sweet, smiling, happy home,
Your saddened hearts will greet:
No hands of love--no eyes of light--
Will make your wants their care,
Or soothe you thro' the dreary night,
Or smooth your clotted hair.
But crushed by sickness, famine, thirst,
You'll strive in vain to sleep,
Mid corpses mangled, blackened, burst,
And blood and mire deep;
While horrid groans, and fiendish yells,
And every loathsome stench,
Will kindle images of hell
You'll strive in vain to quench.
Yet _on_--press on, in all your might,
With banners to the field,
And mingle in the glorious fight,
With Satan for your shield:
For marble columns, if you die,
_May_ on them bear your name;
While papers, tho' they sometimes lie,
Will praise you, or will blame.
Yet woe! to those who build a house,
Or kingdom, not by right,--