What! have ye thought to pluck
Victory from chance and luck,
Triumph from clamorous shout, without a will?
Without the heart to brave
All peril to the grave,
And battle on its brink, unshrinking still?

II.

And did ye dream success
Would still unvarying bless
Your arms, nor meet reverse in some dread field?
And shall an adverse hour
Make ye mistrust the power
Of virtue, in your souls, to make your enemy yield?

III.

Oh! from this dreary sleep
Arise, and upward leap,
Nor let your hearts grow palsied with dismay!
Fling out your banner high,
Still challenging the sky,
While thousand strong arms bear it on its way.

IV.

Forth, as a sacred band,
Sworn saviours of the land,
Chosen by God, the champions of the right!
And never doubt that He
Who made will keep ye free,
If thus your souls resolve to triumph in the fight!

V.

The felon foe, no more
Trampling the sacred shore,
Shall leave defiling footprint on the sod;
Where, desperate in the strife,
Reckless of wounds and life,
Ye brave your myriad foes beneath the eye of God!

VI.

On brothers, comrades, men,
Rush to the field again;
Home, peace, love, safety--freedom--are the prize!
Strike! while an arm can bear
Weapon--and do not spare--
Ye break a felon bond in every foe that dies!

Missing.

In the cool, sweet hush of a wooded nook,
Where the May buds sprinkle the green old mound,
And the winds, and the birds, and the limpid brook,
Murmur their dreams with a drowsy sound;
Who lies so still in the plushy moss,
With his pale cheek pressed on a breezy pillow,
Couched where the light and the shadows cross
Through the flickering fringe of the willow?
Who lies, alas!
So still, so chill, in the whispering grass?

A soldier clad in the Zouave dress,
A bright-haired man, with his lips apart,
One hand thrown up o'er his frank, dead face,
And the other clutching his pulseless heart,
Lies here in the shadows, cool and dim,
His musket swept by a trailing bough,
With a careless grace in each quiet limb,
And a wound on his manly brow;
A wound, alas!
Whence the warm blood drips on the quiet grass.

The violets peer from their dusky beds,
With a tearful dew in their great, pure eyes;
The lilies quiver their shining heads,
Their pale lips full of a sad surprise;
And the lizard darts through the glistening fern--
And the squirrel rustles the branches hoary;
Strange birds fly out, with a cry, to bathe
Their wings in the sunset glory;
While the shadows pass
O'er the quiet face and the dewy grass.

God pity the bride who waits at home,
With her lily cheeks and her violet eyes,
Dreaming the sweet old dreams of love,
While her lover is walking in Paradise;
God strengthen her heart as the days go by,
And the long, drear nights of her vigil follow,
Nor bird, nor moon, nor whispering wind,
May breathe the tale of the hollow;
Alas! alas!
The secret is safe with the woodland grass.

Ode-"Souls of Heroes."