Where shall we write your names, ye brave!
Where build for you a monument,
Who lie in many a sylvan grave,
Stretched half across the continent!
Young, bright and brave, the very flower
And choice of all we had to give,
With you what glory ceased to live,--
Or lives again in hearts of men.
An inspiration and a power!
For when one sunny day in June,
A sudden war-cry shook the land,
As if from out clear skies at noon
Had dropped the lightning's deadly brand--
Ah then, while rang our British cheers,
And pealed the bugle, rolled the drum,
We saw the Nation rise like one!
Swift formed the files,--a thousand miles
Of them, our gallant Volunteers!
Deep clanged the bells, the drums did beat,
And still from east and west they came;
Echoed the street with martial feet,
From north, from south, with hearts aflame:
Ah, still the tires of freedom burn,--
Be witness, Ridgway's silent shade,
No foe shall dare our land invade,
While hearts like those that met the foes,
Still beat like theirs,--the undismayed,
The brave, who never will return.
Our Country holds them in her heart,
Shrined with her mountains and her rivers;
And still for them her proud lip quivers,
And tears to her great eyelids start:
But they are tears of love and pride,
And she shall tell to coming years
The story of her Volunteers,
For all their names are hers and fame's--
The brave who live, the brave who died.