And traitors' lips had never yet defamed
The land for which our fathers fought and bled--
Hallowed by graves of honored patriot-dead!

Fruitful the earth, and fair the skies above;
The days were blissful, and the nights were love;
We were at peace--our land and freedom gained--
Our fair escutcheon with no blot e'er stained--
But all did honor to the fair young State
Who made herself both glorious and great;
Our Eagle--emblem of the happy free--
Was free to soar o'er foreign land or sea!

But darkness came, and settled like a pall
Funereal, on our hearts; o'er one and all
It cast its blighting, withering wing,
A horrid, shapeless, and revolting thing--
While dove-eyed Peace bowed down its gentle head
And wept for those, though living, worse than dead;
And blood, like rivers, flowed from hill to plain
'Till land and sea knew not their ghastly slain.

The Northern snows incarnadined with gore--
The Southern vales with blood, like wine, ran o'er--
The battle raging in the morning sun,
At night, the warfare scarcely yet begun--
The sire, in arms to meet his foeman-son,
Brother, to seek his brother in the strife,
Rushed madly on--demanding life for life!
And children, orphans made--and worse than widowed, wife!

And this the land which erst our fathers blest,
Favored of Heaven--the pilgrim's hope of rest--
Now cursed by traitors, who with impious hands
Have dared to sunder our once-hallowed bands--
Have dared to poison with their ven'mous breath
All that was fair--and raise the flag of death;
Have dared to blight the country of their birth,
Striving her name to banish from the earth!

God of our fathers! where your lightnings now,
To blind their vision, and their hearts to bow?
Traitors to all that manhood holds most dear,
Without remorse, with neither hope nor fear,
They trail our starry banner in the dust,
And flaunt their own base emblem in the gust;
Like the arch-fiend, who from a Heaven once fell,
They'd pull us down to their own fearful hell!

A boon! O God! a boon from thee we crave--
Shine on this gloomy darkness of the grave;
Stretch forth thine arm, and let the waves be still,
And Union triumph, as it must and will.
God of our Fathers! guide our arms aright,
Be near and with us in the deadly fight;
Co