Come! 'Tis the red dawn of the day, Maryland! Come with thy panoplied array, Maryland! With Ringgold's spirit for the fray, With Watson's blood at Monterey, With fearless Lowe and dashing May, Maryland, my Maryland! Dear mother, burst the tyrant's chain, Maryland! Virginia should not call in vain, Maryland! She meets her sisters on the plain, "_Sic semper!_" 'tis the proud refrain That baffles minions back amain, Maryland! Arise in majesty again, Maryland, my Maryland! Come! for thy shield is bright and strong, Maryland! Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong, Maryland! Come to thine own heroic throng Stalking with liberty along, And chant thy dauntless slogan-song, Maryland, my Maryland! I see the blush upon thy cheek, Maryland! But thou wast ever bravely meek, Maryland! But lo! There surges forth a shriek, From hill to hill, from creek to creek, Potomac calls to Chesapeake, Maryland, my Maryland! Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll, Maryland! Thou wilt not crook to his control, Maryland! Better the fire upon thee roll, Better the shot, the blade, the bowl, Than crucifixion of the soul, Maryland, my Maryland! I hear the distant thunder-hum, Maryland! The "Old Line's" bugle, fife, and drum, Maryland! She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb; Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum-- She breathes, she burns! She'll come! She'll come! Maryland, my Maryland! --_James Ryder Randall._ _My Maryland_, one of the most popular songs of the Confederacy, was written by James Ryder Randall, in 1861. Randall was at that time professor of English literature at Poydras College, upon the Fausse Rivière, of Louisiana. He was very young, and had but recently come from college in Maryland. He was full of poetry and romance, and when one day in April, 1861, he read in the New Orleans _Delta_ the news of the attack on the Massachusetts Sixth as they passed through Baltimore, it fired his blood. "This account excited me greatly," Mr. Randall writes. "I had long been absent from my native city, and the startling event there inflamed my mind. That night I could not sleep, for my nerves were all unstrung, and I could not dismiss what I had read in the paper from my mind. About midnight I arose, lit a candle, and went to my desk. Some powerful spirit appeared to possess me, and almost involuntarily I proceeded to write the song of _My Maryland_. I remember that the idea appeared to take shape first as music in the brain--some wild air that I cannot now recall. The whole poem of nine stanzas, as originally written, was dashed off rapidly when once begun." [Illustration: _THE INVASION OF MARYLAND_ (_View from Maryland Heights_)]