VIII.—WASHINGTON COMES TO BATTLE.
Again turn we to the South. What see you there?
There is the gleam of arms, but it is faint, it is faint and far away!
Hark! Do you hear that sound? Is it thunder, is it the throbbing of
some fierce earthquake, tearing its way through the vitals of the earth?
No! No! The legions are moving.
Washington has scented the prey—doubt is over. Glory to the god
of battles—glory! The Battle is now certain. There, there, hidden by
woods and hills, advances the Banner of the New World—the Labarum of
the Rights of man! There, the boy-general La Fayette gaily smiles and
waves his maiden sword—there, there white-uniformed Pulaski growls his
battle cry—there calm-visaged Greene is calculating chances, and there
Wayne—Mad Anthony Wayne? Hah? What does he now? Listen to
his cannon—they speak out over three miles of forest! That is the welcome
of Mad Anthony to Kniphausen, as he attempts to cross the Brandywine!
And on they come, the American legions—over hill and thro' wood,
a long lonely dell, band after band, battalion crowding on battallion—and now
they move in columns! How the roar of the cataract deepens and swells!
The earth trembles—all nature gives signs of the coming contest.
And over all, over the lonely valley, over the hosts advancing to the fight,
there sits a hideous Phantom, will the head of a fiend, the wings of a vulture!
Yes, yes, there, unseon and unknown, in mid-air, hovers the Fiend
of Carnage! He spreads his dusky wings with joy! He will have a rare
feast ere sundown—a dainty feast! The young, the gallant, the brave are
all to sodden your graveyard with their blood.
Near the foot of this hill, down in the hollow yonder, a clear spring of
cold water shines in the sun. Is it not beautiful, that spring of cold water,
with its border of wild flowers, its sands yellow as gold?
Ere the setting of yonder sun, that spring will be red and rank and foul
with the gore of a thousand hearts!
For it lays in the lap of the valley, and all the blood shed upon yon hill,
will pour into it, in little rills of crimson red!
And on, and on, over hill and valley, on and on advances the Banner of
the New World.
—Glory to the God of battle, how fair that banner looks in the green woods,
how beautiful it breaks on the eye, when toying with the gentle breezes, it
pours its starry rays among the forest trees, or mirrors its beauty in some
quiet brook?
But when it emerges from the green woods, when tossing on the winds
of battle, it seeks the open plain, and its belts of scarlet and snow float
grandly in the air, and its stars flash back the light of the sun—ah, then it
is a glorious sight! Then let this prayer arise from every American heart!
Be thou enthroned above that banner, God of Battles! Guard it with
thy lightnings, fan it with thy breezes, avenge it with thy thunders!
May it ever advance as now, in a cause holy as thy light! May the
hand that would dare pluck one star from its glory, wither—may treason
fall palsied beneath its shade!
But should it ever advance in the cause of a Tyrant, should its folds ever
float over a nation of slaves, then crush Thou that banner in the dust—then
scatter its fragments to space and night, then, then take back to Heaven
thy Stars!
But may it wave on and on—may it advance over this broad continent—
freedom's pillar of cloud by day—freedom's pillar of fire by night—until
there shall be but one nation, from the ice-wilderness of the north, to the
waters of the Southern Sea—a nation of Americans and of brothers!
