Classic Poem

Our flag on the land, and our flag on the ocean.
An angel of Peace wheresoever it goes;
Nobly sustained by Columbia's devotion,
The angel of Death it shall be to our foes.
True to its native sky,
Still shall our eagle fly,
Casting his sentinel glances afar,
Though bearing the olive-branch
Still in his talons staunch,
Grasping the bolts of the thunders of War!

Hark to the sound! there's a foe on our border,
A foe striding on to the gulf of his doom;
Freemen are rising and marching in order,
Leaving the plow, and the anvil and loom;
Rust dims the harvest sheen,
Of scythe and of sickle keen;
The axe sleeps in peace by the tree it would mar;
Veteran and youth are out,
Swelling the battle-shout,
Grasping the bolts of the thunders of War!

Our brave mountain eagles swoop from their eyrie;
Our lithe panther's leap from forest and plain;
Out of the West flash the flames of the prairie;
Out of the East roll the waves of the main.
Down from their Northern shores,
Swift as Niagara pours,
They march, and their tread wakes the earth with its jar,
Under the stripes and stars,
Each with the soul of Mars,
Grasping the bolts of the thunders of War!

Spite of the sword, or assassin's stiletto,
While throbs a heart in the breast of the brave,
The oak of the North, or the Southern palmetto,
Shall shelter no foe except in the grave.
While the gulf billow breaks,
Echoing our Northern lakes,
And ocean replies unto ocean afar,
Yield we no inch of land,
While there's a patriot hand
Grasping the bolts of the thunders of War!