Page:Suggestive programs for special day exercises.djvu/75

When suddenly his mantle wide
His hands impatiently flung aside,
And, lol he met their wondering eyes
Complete in all a warrior’s guise.

A moment there was awful pause—
When Berkeley cried, “Cease, traitor! cease!
God’s temple is the house of peace!”

The other shouted, “Nay, not so,

When God is with our righteous cause;
His holiest places then are ours,
His temples are our forts and towers

That frown upon the tyrant foe;

In this the dawn of freedom’s day,
There is a time to fight and pray!“

And now before the open door—

The warrior priest had ordered so—

The enlisting triumphs sudden roar
Rang through the chapel o’er and o’er.

Its long reverberating blow.

So loud and clear, it seemed the ear
Of dusty death must wake and hear.
And there the startling drum and fife
Fired the living with fiercer life:
While overhead, with wild increase,
Forgetting its ancient toil of peace,

The great bell swung as ne’er before.

It seemed as it would never cease;
And every word its order flung
From off its jubilant iron tongue,

Was, War! War! WAR!

“Who dares”—this was the patriot’s cry,
As striding from the desk he came—
“Come out with me, in Freedom’s name
For her to live, for her to die?”
A hundred hands flung up reply,
A hundred voices answered, “I.”

WARREN’S ADDRESS.

JOHN PIERPONT.

Stand! the ground’s your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves,
Will ye look for greener graves,
Hope ye mercy still?
What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle peal.
Read it on yon bristling steel.
Ask it, ye who will!

Fear ye foes who kill for hire,
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! they’re afire,
And, before you, see
Who have done it! From the vale
On they come, and will ye quail?
Leaden rain and iron hail
Let their welcome be!

In the God of battles trust!
Die we may—and die we must;
But oh, where can dust to dust
Be consigned so well,
As where heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyred patriot's bed.
And the rocks shall raise their head
Of his deeds to tell!