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Home  »  Yale Book of American Verse  »  30 The American Flag

Thomas R. Lounsbury, ed. (1838–1915). Yale Book of American Verse. 1912.

Joseph Rodman Drake 1795–1820

Joseph Rodman Drake

30 The American Flag

WHEN Freedom from her mountain height

Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there.

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes

The milky baldric of the skies,

And striped its pure celestial white

With streakings of the morning light;

Then from his mansion in the sun

She called her eagle bearer down,

And gave into his mighty hand

The symbol of her chosen land.

Majestic monarch of the cloud,

Who rear’st aloft thy regal form,

To hear the tempest trumpings loud

And see the lightning lances driven,

When strive the warriors of the storm,

And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven,

Child of the sun! to thee ’t is given

To guard the banner of the free,

To hover in the sulphur smoke,

To ward away the battle stroke,

And bid its blendings shine afar,

Like rainbows on the cloud of war,

The harbingers of victory!

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,

The sign of hope and triumph high,

When speaks the signal trumpet tone,

And the long line comes gleaming on.

Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,

Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,

Each soldier eye shall brightly turn

To where thy sky-born glories burn,

And, as his springing steps advance,

Catch war and vengeance from the glance.

And when the cannon-mouthings loud

Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud,

And gory sabres rise and fall

Like shoots of flame on midnight’s pall;

Then shall thy meteor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall shrink beneath

Each gallant arm that strikes below

That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! on ocean wave

Thy stars shall glitter o’er the brave;

When death, careering on the gale,

Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,

And frighted waves rush wildly back

Before the broadside’s reeling rack,

Each dying wanderer of the sea

Shall look at once to heaven and thee,

And smile to see thy splendors fly

In triumph o’er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart’s hope and home!

By angel hands to valor given;

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.

Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,

With Freedom’s soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom’s banner streaming o’er us?