Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

The Death of the Brave

WAKE the harp to strains of glory,

For deeds of high heroic story;

Let the rushing stream of song

Sweep with the wild wave’s force along.

As the chords in thunder roll,

Burns for fight the warrior’s soul,

And as the rising feeling glows,

He meets the torrent of his foes.

Bright beams his faulchion waving high,

And on his plume sits victory:

But while the battle rages round,

The hero falls, with glory crown’d.

’Twas thus the valiant Daviess fell,

He whom his country loved so well.

Ah, there for many a soldier brave

Had Fate prepared an honour’d grave;

Columbia’s sons, Columbia’s pride,

They fought, they conquer’d, and they died:

Shall their’s be then the meteor’s lot,

Seen for an hour and then forgot?

No! on the hero’s laurel bier

The Muse shall drop the sacred tear;

And Memory, bending o’er the grave,

The warrior’s name shall fondly save;

And high and holy minstrel lays

Shall tell their worth to distant days;

But (tribute richer far than all)

For them the tears of beauty fall.