There’s an echo shakes the valley o’er the rhythm deep and slow Of the drum, of the drum, ’Tis the guns, the guns a-rolling on the bridges down below, Here they come, here they come, Hark the felloes grind and lumber through the shadows gray and umber, And the triple spans a-panting up the slope the stones encumber, With the rhythm, distant rhythm, of the drum. “’Tis the long Shapes of Fear that the moonlight silvers here, “And the jolting limber’s weighted with the silent cannoneer, “’Tis the Pipes of Peace are passing, O ye people, give an ear!” Says the rhythm, iron rhythm, of the drum. “They are rhythm, thunder rhythm, and they do not need me with ’em, “That can overtone my choir like the bourdon from the spire. “_Avant-garde_ am I to these Lords of dreadful revelries, “Iron Cyclops with an eye to confound the earth and sky. “Love and Fear, Love and Fear, neither one but both revere, “And whatever grace ye deal let it be from courts of steel, “Set the guns’ emplacement then to expound the Law to men,” Says the rhythm, iron rhythm, of the drum. “O ye coiners, sentence-joiners, in a fatted, tradesman’s land, “Here’s evangel Pentecostal that all nations understand, “When they speak before the battle fools and theories are dumb!” God be with ’em, and the rhythm, And the rhythm, iron rhythm, And the rolling thunder rhythm Of the drum!