Where shall we write your names, ye brave!
Where build for you a monument,
Who lie in many a sylvan grave,
Stretched half across the continent!
Young, bright and brave, the very flower
And choice of all we had to give,
With you what glory ceased to live,—
Or lives again in hearts of men.
An inspiration and a power!
For when one sunny day in June,
A sudden war-cry shook the land,
As if from out clear skies at noon
Had dropped the lightning's deadly brand—
Ah then, while rang our British cheers,
And pealed the bugle, rolled the drum,
We saw the Nation rise like one!
Swift formed the files,—a thousand miles
Of them, our gallant Volunteers!
Deep clanged the bells, the drums did beat,
And still from east and west they came;
Echoed the street with martial feet,
From north, from south, with hearts aflame:
Ah, still the tires of freedom burn,—
Be witness, Ridgway's silent shade,
No foe shall dare our land invade,
While hearts like those that met the foes,
Still beat like theirs,—the undismayed,
The brave, who never will return.
Our Country holds them in her heart,
Shrined with her mountains and her rivers;
And still for them her proud lip quivers,
And tears to her great eyelids start:
But they are tears of love and pride,
And she shall tell to coming years
The story of her Volunteers,
For all their names are hers and fame's—
The brave who live, the brave who died.