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William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

Awake, Awake! to Glory Wake

AWAKE, awake! to glory wake;

The din of battle calls,

A nation’s wrongs your slumbers break:

Columbia lives—or falls!

Ye freeborn spirits, take the field,

Your country’s wrongs redress,

Your country’s rights with glory shield,

Your country’s fears repress.

A haughty foe invades your rights,

And triumphs in your spoil;

She glories in her base exploits,

And fattens on your toil;

Your commerce withers on the main,

Your sons in slavery groan,

Your brothers’ blood your harbours stain,

Your childless mothers mourn.

Here secret spies infest your land,

Enkindling discord’s flame;

Combining with a venal band

To crush our legal frame;

To arm the sire against the son,

The son against the sire!

To cause a brother’s blood to run

To quench a brother’s ire!

The lurking savage yells for prey

Along the western wild;

The hunter’s track is watch’d by day,

By night his sleep beguiled:

His burning cottage frights the gloom,

His infants shriek the alarm,

His wife sinks lifeless in a swoon,

Or bleeds within his arms.

“O God! wilt thou not judge” our foes?

And let thy wrath descend:

Avenge an injured people’s woes,

Their righteous cause defend.

Inspire our sons to take the field,

Their country’s wrongs redress,

Their country’s rights with glory shield,

Their country’s fears repress.

Lives here a wretch who would not fight?

A miscreant who would fly?

A dastard who would yield his right?

Or grudge to freely die?

When wrongs and insult crowd his sight,

And sicken on his heart;

When power gives law, and interest right,

And truth means only art.