University of Virginia Library

Oh, the Fourth of July!
When fire-crackers fly,
And urchins in petticoats tyrants defy!
When all the still air
Creeps away in despair,
And Clamor is king, be the day dark or fair!
When Freedom's red flowers
Fall in star-spangled showers,
And Liberty capers for twenty-four hours!
When the morn's ushered in
By a sleep-crushing din,
That tempts us to use philological sin!
When the forenoon advances
With large circumstances
Subjecting our lives to debatable chances!
When the soldiers of peace
Their attractions increase,
By marching, protected with clubs of police!
When the little toy-gun
Has its share of the fun,
By teaching short-hand to the favorite son!
When maids do not scream
At the gun's noise and gleam,
Being chock-full of patriotism, gum, and ice-cream!
When horses, hard-bittish,
Get nervous and skittish,
Not knowing their ancestors helped whip the British!
When the family flag,
Full of stars, stripes, and brag,
From the window pops out like a cat from a bag!
When picnic crowds go forth,
Their freedom to throw forth,
Coming back full of patriotism, glory, and so forth!
When long-trained excursions,
With various diversions,
Go out and make work for the doctors and surgeons!
When Uncle Jim Brown
Drives his wagon to town,
Full of gingerbread, children, and thirst—for renown!
When good dear sister Jones
Hears the tumult with groans,
And prays that her children come off with whole bones!
When all fancies and joys
That can compass a noise,
The country in one day of glory employs!
'Tis a glorious time
For a song or a rhyme,
Or a grand cannonade, or an orchestra's chime,
If one can live through it,
And not come to rue it—
The day that our forefathers said they would do it!

Oh, the Fourth of July!
When grand souls hover nigh,
When Washington bends from the honest blue sky!
When Jefferson stands—
Famous scribe of all lands—
The charter of Heaven in his glorified hands!
When his comrade—strong, high
John Adams, comes nigh—
For both went to their rest the same Fourth of July!
When Franklin—grand—droll—
That could lightnings control—
Comes here with his sturdy, progressive old soul!
When Freedom's strong staff,
Hancock—with a laugh—
Writes in Memory's Album his huge autograph!
When old Putnam is met:
Who—they'll never forget—
Showed the foe that a God was in Israel yet!
When Mad Anthony Wayne
Rides up with loose rein,
And receives our encomiums for being insane!
When George the Third, flounced
From this country, well trounced,
Wishes now that his madness had been less pronounced!
When comes Hamilton, fain
To neglect to explain
How so little a form could support such a brain!
When the brave Lafayette,
Our preserver and pet,
Comes again to collect of us Gratitude's debt!
When Marion advances,
(His Christian-name Francis)
Who played for the British in several dances!
When all the souls grand
That made mighty our land,
Around us in hopefulness silently stand,
And wish, beyond doubt,
That they also could shout,
And help ring the anthem of Liberty out!
When the peals of our mirth,
And our claims of true worth,
Are heard to the uttermost ends of the earth;
To the low and the high,
Who the tyrants defy,
A glorious old day is the Fourth of July!

But let thought have its way,
And give memory sway:
Do we think of the cost of this glorified day?
Do we think of the pain
Of the body, heart, brain—
The toils of the living, the blood of the slain?
Should we ever forget
What a deep-mortgaged debt
Has been placed on this date, and exists even yet?
What to our minds saith
The icy cold breath
Of Valley Forge—freezing our soldiers to death?
Can our hearts find a tongue
For those men, old and young,
Who fought while a rope o'er their heads grimly hung?
Of the toils o'er and o'er
That brave Unionists bore,
That our country might not go to pieces once more?
Do we think, while overt
Patriotism we assert,
How a sword-blade will sting—how a bullet can hurt?
Do we feel the fierce strain
Of the edge-belinked chain
That drags through the body—a wounded man's pain?
Do we know, by-the-way,
What it might be to stay
In the wards of a hospital, day after day,
While our life-blood was shed
On a pain-mattressed bed,
And no one we loved to stand near us when dead?
What it may be to lie
'Neath a smoke-blotted sky,
With horse-hoofs to trample us e'en as we die?
Do we think of that boy,
Full of hope, love, and joy,
Who died lest strong men should his country destroy?
Of that husband who fell
In the blood-streaming dell,
Leaving only the memory of battles fought well?
While the harvest field waves,
Do we think of those braves
In the farms quickly planted with thousands of graves?
How the great flag up there,
Clean and pure as the air,
Has been drabbled with blood-drops, and trailed in despair?
Do we know what a land
God hath placed in our hand,
To be made into star-gems, or crushed into sand?
Let us feel that our race,
Doomed to no second place,
Must glitter with triumph or die in disgrace;
That millions unborn,
At night, noon, and morn,
Will thank us with blessings or curse us with scorn,
For raising more high
Freedom's flag to the sky,
Or losing forever the Fourth of July!