You can never win them back--
Never! never!
Though they perish on the track
Of your endeavor;
Though their corses strew the earth,
That SMILED upon their birth,
And blood pollutes each hearth-
Stone forever!
They have risen to a man,
Stern and fearless;
Of your curses and your ban
They are careless.
Every hand is on its knife,
Every gun is primed for strife,
Every PALM contains a life,
High and peerless!
_You have no such blood as theirs_
For the shedding:
In the veins of cavaliers
Was its heading:
_You_ have no such stately men
In your "abolition den,"
To march through foe and fen,
Nothing dreading!
They may fall before the fire
Of your legions,
Paid with gold for murderous hire--
_Bought allegiance_;
But for every drop you shed,
You shall have a mound of dead,
So that vultures may be fed
In our regions!
But the battle to the strong
Is not given,
When the Judge of Right and Wrong
Sits in heaven;
And the God of David still
Guides the pebble with _His will_;
There are giants yet to kill--
Wrongs unshriven!
"NIL DESPERANDUM."
_Inscribed to our Soldier-boys_,