Oh! soldiers!--well ye bear your part;
The world awards its praise:
Be sure,--this grandest tourney o'er,--
'Twill crown you with its bays!

But there's sublimer work than even
To free your native sod;
--Ye may be loyal to your land,
Yet traitors to your God!

No Moslem heaven for him who falls,
A bribed requital doles;
And while ye save your country,--ye,
Alas! may lose your souls!

No glorious deeds can urge their claim,--
No merits, entrance win,--
The pierced hand of Christ alone,
Must freely let you in.

Oh! sirs!--there lurks a fiercer foe,
Than this that treads your soil,
Who springs from unseen ambuscades,
To drag you as his spoil.

He drugs the heedless conscience, till,
No wary watch it keeps,
And parleys with the treacherous heart,
While fast the warder sleeps.