William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.
On a Succession of Our Naval VictoriesWilliam Ray (1771–1827)
A
The nation with its sound!
Death-struck the British host appears,
Whose flag has waved “a thousand years,”
And ne’er an equal found.
Now looming from the main,
Beholds the equal-balanced fight,
And sees the British put to flight,
Again! again! again!
He writhes his monster-form;
His voice to ocean’s deepest cave,
Where sleep the bodies of the brave,
Comes thundering like a storm!
And let us trace the cause
Why Fortune on Britannia lowers,
And why upon Columbia showers
Such triumph and applause!”
Had solved their deep surprise,
Ere loud huzzas had ceased to ring,
A blood-stain’d form, on lightning wing,
Came darting from the skies.
Commission’d from above
To bear the mandate wide and far
As evening from the morning-star,
Of great, almighty Jove.
The tyrant of the sea,
With guiltless blood her banners stain’d,
Ten thousand by impressment chain’d,
Whom God created free.
Hath marr’d her naval sway;
Her perpetrations on the flood,
Abhorr’d by all the great and good,
Heaven’s vengeance will repay.
(Mars thus to Neptune spoke;)
“’Tis Heaven’s—’tis Jove’s supreme command,
The God of ocean and the land,
Which fate can ne’er revoke.
In whom the gods confide.
For she, great empress of the west,
By all the nations ’tis confess’d,
Hath Justice on her side.”