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Home  »  The American National Song-Book  »  Robert Treat Paine, Jr. (1773–1811)

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

The Fourth of July

Robert Treat Paine, Jr. (1773–1811)

Tune—“Battle of the Nile”

LET patriot pride our patriot triumph wake!

The jubilee of Freedom relumes a nation’s soul:

On land or main, no right of realm forsake,

Though warriors’ storms like Ocean’s tempests roll.

Spread your banners, let commerce, industry directing,

Mantle the waves, by courage, wealth protecting:

And new honours while we pay

To our country’s natal day,

Let us build her great renown,

From a soil and sea our own:

For Commerce, Agriculture, Art—rewarded shall be!

Huzza! huzza! huzza! huzza! huzza!

Heaven gave to man the charter to be free.

Huzza! huzza! huzza! huzza! huzza!

Columbia lives, and claims the great decree.

Arise! arise! Columbia’s sons, arise!

Assert, on the ocean, your ocean’s sovereign law;

No hostile flag shall hover in your skies;

No pirate shall keep your mariners in awe.

Be the rights of your shores by cannon law expounded,

And your waters shall be safe where hook and line are sounded.

On the shores of Newfoundland

Let your tars and boats command;

For a mine of wealth you keep,

In the bank beneath the deep,

Whose charter, awful charter, is renew’d by every sea.
Huzza! huzza! &c. &c. &c.

If equal justice neutral laws proclaim,

No power will, presumptuous, your sovereignty disgrace:

Among your stars inscribe a nation’s name;

Your flag will guard our freedom and your race.

Base submission, inviting indignity and plunder,

Like a worm, kills an oak, which should have braved the thunder.

Though beneath the rifting ball

Should the mountain monarch fall,

Still in majesty he reigns,

And, though prostrate, rules the plains;

And scions, blooming scions, spring to renovate the tree.
Huzza! huzza! &c. &c. &c.

Arouse! arouse! Columbia’s sons, arouse!

And burst through the slumber at Faction’s dreaming fears:

Bid cannons shake the tempests from your brows,

And the clouds shall echo glory on your ears.

When the trumpet of victory, independence claiming,

Swell’d o’er your hills from fields in battle flaming;

When the freedom of the land

By your patriotic band

To this temple was consign’d,

’Twas Washington enshrined,

That the charter, sacred charter, there, immortal should be.
Huzza! huzza! &c. &c. &c.