Not quail and blush, when you shall come, Alive, to their degraded home! Your wives will look askance with scorn; Your boys, and infants yet unborn, Will curse you to God's holy face! Heaven holds no pardon in its grace For cowards. Oh! are such as ye The guardians of our liberty? Back, if one trace of manhood still May nerve your arm and brace your will! You stain your country in the eyes Of Europe and her monarchies! The despots laugh, the peoples groan; Man's cause is lost and overthrown! I curse you, by the sacred blood That freely poured its purple flood Down Bunker's heights, on Monmouth's plain, From Georgia to the rocks of Maine! I curse you, by the patriot band Whose bones are crumbling in the land! By those who saved what these had won-- In the high name of Washington!" Then I remember little more. As the tide's rising waves, that pour Over some low and rounded rock, The coming mass, with one great shock, Flowed o'er the shelter of my mound, And raised me helpless from the ground. As the huge shouldering billows bear, Half in the sea and half in air, A swimmer on their foaming crest, So the foul throng beneath me pressed, Swept me along, with curse and blow, And flung me-where, I ne'er shall know. When I awoke, a steady rain Made rivulets across the plain; And it was dark--oh, very dark. I was so stunned as scarce to mark The ghostly figures of the trees, Or hear the sobbing of the breeze That flung the wet leaves to and fro. Upon me lay a dismal woe, A boundless, superhuman grief, That drew no promise of relief From any hope. Then I arose, As one who struggles up from blows By unseen hands; and as I stood Alone, I thought that God was good, To hide, in clouds and driving rain, Our low world from the angel train, Whose souls filled heroes when the earth Was worthy of their noble birth. By that dull instinct of the mind, Which leads aright the helpless blind, I struggled onward, till the dawn Across the eastern clouds had drawn A narrow line of watery gray; And full before my vision lay The great dome's gaunt and naked bones Beneath whose crown the nation thrones Her queenly person. On I stole, With hanging head and abject soul, Across the high embattled ridge, And o'er the arches of the bridge. So freshly pricked my sharp disgrace, I feared to meet the human face, Skulking, as any woman might, Who'd lost her virtue in the night, And sees the dreadful glare of day Prepare to light her homeward way, Alone, heart-broken, shamed, undone, I staggered into Washington! Since then long sluggish days have passed, And on the wings of every blast Have come the distant nations' sneers To tingle in our blushing ears.