University of Virginia Library

Oh, where are the child souls,
With the singers' pride,
Who will wake, refusing defeat and death,
Returning perpetually from the grave,
Generation on generation?
Where are the furious wills of the nation?
Oh, where are the hearts born to power?
“Oh, who is there among us, the true and the tried,
Who will stand by his colors, who is on the Lord's side?”
Who will rise each century, shout once again,
Who will wake in hot faith
With our cavalcade ride?
Send up their American souls from the grave,
And go forth in glory, aspiring,
Breathing springtime breath and noonday fire,
Armed with doll beauty perilous,
Armed with child glory marvellous,
Armed with Southern poems delirious,
Armed with grass daggers
They found in the ground,
Armed with old shields they dug up in the sky,
By the Archangel Mountains high—
Armed with long swords like the young crescent moon—
Oh, who is there among us, the true and the tried,
Who will ride against Death and his endless cruelty,
However his legions conspire?
Who will ride against all grown-up foes of Democracy?
“To-morrow, to-morrow,” their marvelous tune—
“To-morrow,” their marvelous cry of desire—
Going forth with pouring armies
Of the deathless young and gay,
Driving Death forever from the way.
Yes, who will sing in the follies of Heaven
To the Taylor-born Tennessee tune?
Who will follow the child Tennessee
Armed with soul-swords like the young crescent moon?
Who will follow her through the twilight,
Or in the morning, by the bright light,
Armed by her music, shouting her fame,
As she rides down the future with her boys all white flame,
As she rides down the future with her girls all white fire?
Just in time to stop the charges
Of Death and all his hosts
That turn at last to beaten ghost.