Lay down the axe, fling by the spade;
    Leave in its track the toiling plough;
  The rifle and the bayonet-blade
    For arms like yours were fitter now;
  And let the hands that ply the pen
    Quit the light task, and learn to wield
  The horseman’s crooked brand, and rein
    The charger on the battle-field.

  Our country calls; away! away! 
    To where the blood-stream blots the green;
  Strike to defend the gentlest sway
    That Time in all his course has seen. 
  See, from a thousand coverts—­see
    Spring the armed foes that haunt her track;
  They rush to smite her down, and we
    Must beat the banded traitors back.

  Ho! sturdy as the oaks ye cleave,
    And moved as soon to fear and flight,
  Men of the glade and forest! leave
    Your woodcraft for the field of fight. 
  The arms that wield the axe must pour
    An iron tempest on the foe;
  His serried ranks shall reel before
    The arm that lays the panther low.

  And ye who breast the mountain storm
    By grassy steep or highland lake,
  Come, for the land ye love, to form
    A bulwark that no foe can break. 
  Stand, like your own gray cliffs that mock
    The whirlwind; stand in her defence: 
  The blast as soon shall move the rock,
    As rushing squadrons bear ye thence.

  And ye whose homes are by her grand
    Swift rivers, rising far away,
  Come from the depth of her green land
    As mighty in your march as they;
  As terrible as when the rains
    Have swelled them over bank and bourne,
  With sudden floods to drown the plains
    And sweep along the woods uptorn.

  And ye who throng beside the deep,
    Her ports and hamlets of the strand,
  In number like the waves that leap
    On his long-murmuring marge of sand,
  Come, like that deep, when, o’er his brim,
    He rises, all his floods to pour,
  And flings the proudest barks that swim,
    A helpless wreck against his shore.

  Few, few were they whose swords of old
    Won the fair land in which we dwell;
  But we are many, we who hold
    The grim resolve to guard it well. 
  Strike for that broad and goodly land,
    Blow after blow, till men shall see
  That Might and Right move hand in hand,
    And Glorious must their triumph be.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

* * * * *

A CRY TO ARMS.

[1861.]

  Ho, woodsmen of the mountain-side! 
    Ho, dwellers in the vales! 
  Ho, ye who by the chafing tide
    Have roughened in the gales! 
  Leave barn and byre, leave kin and cot,
    Lay by the bloodless spade;
  Let desk and case and counter rot,
    And burn your books of trade!

  The despot roves your fairest lands;
    And till he flies or fears,
  Your fields must grow but armed bands,
    Your sheaves be sheaves of spears! 
  Give up to mildew and to rust
    The useless tools of gain,
  And feed your country’s sacred dust
    With floods of crimson rain!