THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE Nor a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corpse to the rampart we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried. We buried him darkly at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest With his martial cloak around him. Few and short were the prayers we said, We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on But half of our heavy task was done When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, CHARLES WOLFE WHEN THE BOYS COME HOME THERE'S a happy time coming, When the boys come home. When the boys come home. The day will seem brighter When the boys come home, For our hearts will be lighter When the boys come home. Wives and sweethearts will press them, In their arms and caress them, And pray God to bless them, When the boys come home. The thinned ranks will be proudest Their bayonets may be rusty, When the boys come home. In the brown and bearded faces, Our love shall go to meet them, And the fame of their endeavor When the boys come home. JOHN HAY BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword, His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps, His day is marching on. I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel; 'As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,' Since God is marching on. He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. JULIA WARD HOWE SOLDIERS OF THE LIGHT GOD end War! but when brute War is ended, Life is battle, even to the sunset. |