Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
New England
By James Gates Percival (1795–1856)H
Our fondest boast!
The sepulchre of mighty dead,
The truest hearts that ever bled,
Who sleep on glory’s brightest bed,
A fearless host:
No slave is here;—our unchained feet
Walk freely, as the waves that beat
Our coast.
To seek this shore;
They left behind the coward slave
To welter in his living grave;
With hearts unbent, high, steady, brave,
They sternly bore
Such toils as meaner souls had quelled;
But souls like these, such toils impelled
To soar.
On Bunker’s height!
And fearless stemmed the invading flood,
And wrote our dearest rights in blood,
And mowed in ranks the hireling brood,
In desperate fight:
O, ’twas a proud, exulting day,
For even our fallen fortunes lay
In light.
No dearer shore;
Thou art the shelter of the free;
The home, the port of liberty
Thou hast been, and shalt ever be,
Till time is o’er.
Ere I forget to think upon
My land, shall mother curse the son
She bore.
On which we rest;
And rising from thy hardy stock,
Thy sons the tyrant’s frown shall mock,
And slavery’s galling chains unlock,
And free the oppressed:
All, who the wreath of freedom twine,
Beneath the shadow of the vine
Are blessed.
And here we stand:
Let foreign navies hasten o’er,
And on our heads their fury pour,
And peal their cannon’s loudest roar,
And storm our land:
They still shall find, our lives are given
To die for home;—and leant on Heaven
Our hand.