The lips have long been silent
That could send an answer back;
And the spur, all broken and rusted,
Has forgotten its rider's track!
I only know that the pulses
Leap hot, and the senses reel,
When I think that the Spur of Monmouth
May have clasped George Washington's heel!

And if it be so, O Heaven,
That the nation's destiny holds,
And that maps the good and the evil
In the future's bewildering folds,
Send forth some man of the people,
Unspotted in heart and hand,
On his foot to buckle the relic,
And charge for a periled land!

There is fire in our fathers' ashes;
There is life in the blood they shed;
And not a hair unheeded
Shall fall from the nation's head.
Old bones of the saints and the martyrs
Spring up at the church's call:--
God grant that the Spur of Monmouth
Prove the mightiest relic of all!

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