| |
| HAIL to the land whereon we tread, | |
| Our fondest boast! | |
| The sepulchre of mighty dead, | |
| The truest hearts that ever bled, | |
| Who sleep on glory’s brightest bed, | 5 |
| A fearless host: | |
| No slave is here;—our unchained feet | |
| Walk freely, as the waves that beat | |
| Our coast. | |
| |
| Our fathers crossed the ocean’s wave | 10 |
| To seek this shore; | |
| They left behind the coward slave | |
| To welter in his living grave; | |
| With hearts unbent, high, steady, brave, | |
| They sternly bore | 15 |
| Such toils as meaner souls had quelled; | |
| But souls like these, such toils impelled | |
| To soar. | |
| |
| Hail to the morn when first they stood | |
| On Bunker’s height! | 20 |
| And fearless stemmed the invading flood, | |
| And wrote our dearest rights in blood, | |
| And mowed in ranks the hireling brood, | |
| In desperate fight: | |
| O, ’t was a proud, exulting day, | 25 |
| For even our fallen fortunes lay | |
| In light. | |
| |
| There is no other land like thee, | |
| No dearer shore; | |
| Thou art the shelter of the free; | 30 |
| The home, the port of liberty | |
| Thou hast been, and shalt ever be, | |
| Till time is o’er. | |
| Ere I forget to think upon | |
| My land, shall mother curse the son | 35 |
| She bore. | |
| |
| Thou art the firm, unshaken rock, | |
| On which we rest; | |
| And rising from thy hardy stock, | |
| Thy sons the tyrant’s frown shall mock, | 40 |
| And slavery’s galling chains unlock, | |
| And free the oppressed: | |
| All who the wreath of freedom twine | |
| Beneath the shadow of the vine | |
| Are blessed. | 45 |
| |
| We love thy rude and rocky shore, | |
| And here we stand: | |
| Let foreign navies hasten o’er, | |
| And on our heads their fury pour, | |
| And peal their cannon’s loudest roar, | 50 |
| And storm our land: | |
| They still shall find, our lives are given | |
| To die for home;—and leant on Heaven | |
| Our hand. | |
| |
