God of the Free! to thee we look,
As look’d our sires in days of old,
When on thy breath invoked by prayer,
Their banner for the Right unroll’d.
That glorious banner still is ours;
Our falchions like their own shall start,
When Freedom’s sent’nel-trumpet calls,
To find the impious tyrant’s heart.
Their sacred homesteads still we own,
And still the wave of Plymouth rolls
The hymn of Justice, Labor, Right,
And blest Religion in our souls.
Their mighty mission was not left
By them in vain for us, for we,
Heirs of a continent, are yet
Subduing mountain, vale, and sea.
How proudly on our march we go,
With Washington’s own flag unfurl’d;
The blood of all the world is here,
And he who strikes us, strikes the world!
Then wave thine oaken bough, O North!
O South! exulting lift thy palms;
And in our Union’s heritage
Together sing the Nation’s psalms.