This is our maxim, this our piety;
And God and Nature say that it is just.
That which we ‘would’ perform in arms–we must!
We read the dictate in the infant’s eye;
In the wife’s smile; and in the placid sky;
And, at our feet, amid the silent dust
Of them that were before us.–Sing aloud
Old songs, the precious music of the heart!
Give, herds and flocks, your voices to the wind!
While we go forth, a self-devoted crowd,
With weapons grasped in fearless hands, to assert
Our virtue, and to vindicate mankind.