By old Potomac's rushing tide
Our bayonets are gleaming;
And o'er the bounding waters wide
We gaze while tears are streaming.
The distant hills of Maryland
Rise sadly up before us,
And tyrant bands have chained our land--
Our mother, proud, that bore us.
Our proud old mother's queenly head
Is bowed in subjugation;
With her children's blood her soil is red,
And fiends in exultation
Taunt her with shame as they bind her chains,
While her heart is torn with anguish;
Old mother, on famed Manassas's plains
Our vengeance did not languish!
We thought of your wrongs as on we rushed,
'Mid shot and shell appalling;
We heard your voice as it upward gushed
From the Maryland life-blood falling.
No pity we knew! Did they mercy show
When they bound the mother that bore us?
But we scattered death 'mid the dastard foe,
Till they, shrieking, fled before us!
We mourn for our brothers brave, that fell
On that field, so stern and gory;
But their spirits rose with our triumph-yell
To the heavenly realms of glory.
And their bodies rest on the hard-won field--
By their love so true and tender;
We'll keep the prize they would not yield,
We'll die, but we'll not surrender.
And, mother, we wait but the signal-blast,
To rush to redeem thy glory;
We may fall, but our conquering dust shall rest
On thy soil, so famed in story.
The tyrant's flag shall no longer shine,
Thy liberty to smother,
When the word is passed to the Maryland Line,
To strike for their loved old mother.