Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

War

WHEN the sweet smiling moon rolls her orb through the sky,

And the white clouds are flying afar,

I rove

Through the grove,

While no danger is nigh,

And with pensiveness utter a heart-broken sigh,

As I think on the horrors of war.

O’er the earth hostile armies, in battle around,

Spread destruction and carnage afar,

While blood,

Like a flood,

Flows with crimson the ground,

And the groans of the dying unnumber’d around—

O! the horrors of merciless war!

Heaven hasten the time when the battle shall cease,

And dread terror be banish’d afar;

When love,

Like a dove,

With the emblems of peace,

Shall return to the ark, and all wretchedness cease,

Which embitters the horrors of war.

Then the vulture despair shall from misery fly,

And no ill-omen’d, grief-bearing star,

Shall keep

Gentle sleep

From the fatherless eye,

Nor disturb the repose of the brave with a sigh,

For the wide-wasting horrors of war.