6
Then woe to your vile, polluting horde
When the Southern braves are met—
There’s faith in the victor’s stainless sword—
There’s Life in the Old Land vet!
Bigots! ye quell not the valiant mind
With the clank of an iron chain;
The Spirit of Freedom sings in the wind
O’er Merryman, Thomas and Kane!
And we—though we smite not—are not thralls,
We are piling a gory debt,
While down by McHenry’s dungeon walls
There’s Life in the Old Land yet!
Our women have hung their harps away,
And they scowl on your brutal bands,
While the nimble poinard dares the day
In their dear, defiant hands!
They will strip their tresses to string our bows
Ere the Northern sun is set—
There’s faith in their unrelenting woes,
There’s Life in the Old Land yet!
There’s life, though it throbbeth in silent veins,
Tis vocal without noise—
It gushed o’er Manassas’ solemn plains
From the blood of the Maryland boys!
That blood shall cry aloud, and rise
With an everlasting threat—
By the death of the brave, by the God in the skies,
There’s Life in the Old Land yet!
