William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.
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The clouded stars denied their light,
To those who to the bloody fight
Advanced in darkness silently.
No trumpet broke the silent drear,
Nor e’en a footstep could you hear,
As slow they moved, and warily.
That night had doom’d in flames to lie,
Had not the terrors of the sky
Opposed thy foemen’s bravery.
Earth shakes beneath the cannon’s roar,
The spotless snows were limned with gore,
And carnage riots horribly.
Is ’lumined by the streams of light,
That upwards, from the field of fight,
Gleam’d in the black sky fearfully.
Ye ne’er shall see—for on the plain
The flower of your force lies slain,
And Britain shouts triumphantly.
’Twas Freedom, when her hero fell;
A bullet wing’d by fiends of hell,
Has slain the flower of chivalry.
Though humble is the warrior’s bier,
Yet moisten’d by a soldier’s tear,
His name shall live eternally.