William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.
Perry’s VictoryJohn Neal (1793–1876)
C
And pour thy bold hymn to the winds and the woods:
Columbia, appear!—O’er thy tempest harp bend,
And far, to the nations, its trumpet-song send:
Let thy cliff-echoes wake, with their sun-nourish’d broods,
And chant to the desert, the skies, and the floods;
And bid them remember
The tenth of September,
When our eagle came down from her home in the sky,
And the souls of our ancients were marshall’d on high.
Their flag, like a firmament bend o’er thy head—
The wide, rainbow flag, with its star-cluster’d fold!
Let the knell of dark battle beneath it be toll’d;
While the anthem of peace shall be peal’d for the dead,
And the rude waters heave, on whose bosom they bled:
O, they will remember
The tenth of September,
When their souls were let loose in a tempest of flame,
And wide Erie shook at the trumpet of Fame!
As they march on the storm, all the grandeur of song,
Till the far mountains nod, and the motionless lake
Shall be mantled in froth, and its monarch shall quake
On his green oozy throne, as their harping comes strong,
With the chime of the winds that are bursting along;
For he will remember
The tenth of September,
When he saw his dominions all cover’d with foam;
And heard the loud war in his echoless home.
O, cheer, with thy smile, all the land and the tide!
Be the anthem we hear, not the song that was made,
When the victims of slaughter stood forth all array’d
In blood-dripping garments, and shouted, and died:
But let us remember
The tenth of September,
When the dark waves of Erie were brighten’d to day,
And the flames of the battle were quench’d in their spray.