Rally! rally! rally!
Arouse the slumbering land!
Rally! rally! from mountain and valley,
And up from the ocean-strand!
Ye sons of the West, America's best!
New Hampshire's men of might!
From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,
And rally to the fight!
Armies of untried heroes,
Disguised in craftsman and clerk!
Ye men of the coast, invincible host!
Come, every one, to the work,--
From the fisherman gray as the salt-sea spray
That on Long Island breaks,
To the youth who tills the uttermost hills
By the blue northwestern lakes!
And ye Freedmen! rally, rally
To the banners of the North!
Through the shattered door of bondage pour
Your swarthy legions forth!
Kentuckians! ye of Tennessee
Who scorned the despot's sway!
To all, to all, the bugle-call
Of Freedom sounds to-day!
Old men shall fight with the ballot,
Weapon the last and best,--
And the bayonet, with blood red-wet,
Shall write the will of the rest;
And the boys shall fill men's places,
And the little maiden rock
Her doll as she sits with her grandam and knits
An unknown hero's sock.
And the hearts of heroic mothers,
And the deeds of noble wives,
With their power to bless shall aid no less
Than the brave who give their lives.
The rich their gold shall bring, and the old
Shall help us with their prayers;
While hovering hosts of pallid ghosts
Attend us unawares.
From the ghastly fields of Shiloh
Muster the phantom bands,
From Virginia's swamps, and Death's white camps
On Carolina sands;
From Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg,
I see them gathering fast;
And up from Manassas, what is it that passes
Like thin clouds in the blast?
From the Wilderness, where blanches
The nameless skeleton;
From Vicksburg's slaughter and red-streaked water,
And the trenches of Donelson;
From the cruel, cruel prisons,
Where their bodies pined away,
From groaning decks, from sunken wrecks,
They gather with us to-day.
And they say to us, "Rally! rally!
The work is almost done!
Ye harvesters, sally from mountain and valley
And reap the fields we won!
We sowed for endless years of peace,
We harrowed and watered well;
Our dying deeds were the scattered seeds:
Shall they perish where they fell?"
And their brothers, left behind them
In the deadly roar and clash
Of cannon and sword, by fort and ford,
And the carbine's quivering flash,--
Before the Rebel citadel
Just trembling to its fall,
From Georgia's glens, from Florida's fens,
For us they call, they call!
The life-blood of the tyrant
Is ebbing fast away;
Victory waits at her opening gates,
And smiles on our array;
With solemn eyes the Centuries
Before us watching stand,
And Love lets down his starry crown
To bless the future land.
One more sublime endeavor,
And behold the dawn of Peace!
One more endeavor, and war forever
Throughout the land shall cease!
For ever and ever the vanquished power
Of Slavery shall be slain,
And Freedom's stained and trampled flower
Shall blossom white again!
Then rally! rally! rally!
Make tumult in the land!
Ye foresters, rally from mountain and valley!
Ye fishermen, from the strand!
Brave sons of the West, America's best!
New England's men of might!
From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,
And rally to the fight!