Let us as gladly give our best, Let us as bravely pay the price As they, who in the bitter test Meet the supremest sacrifice. Oh, God! Wherever we are led, Let us be worthy of our dead! Let us not compromise the truth, Let us not cringe so much in fear That foes may whisper to our youth That we have failed in courage here. Lord, strengthen us, that they may know Our spirits follow where they go! Why We Fight This is the thing we fight: A cry of terror in the night; A ship on work of mercy bent-- A carrier of the sick and maimed-- Beneath the cruel waters sent, And those that did it, unashamed. A woman who had tried to fill A mother's place; had nursed the ill And soothed the troubled brows of pain And earned the dying's grateful prayers, Before a wall by soldiers slain! And such a poor pretext was theirs! Old women pierced by bayonets grim And babies slaughtered for a whim, Cathedrals made the sport of shells, No mercy, even for a child, As though the imps of all the hells Were crazed with drink and running wild. All this we fight--that some day when Good sense shall come again to men, Our children's children may not read This age's history thus defamed And find we served a selfish creed And ever be of us ashamed! America God has been good to men. He gave His Only Son their souls to save, And then he made a second gift, Which from their dreary lives should lift The tyrant's yoke and set them free From all who'd throttle liberty. He gave America to men-- Fashioned this land we love, and then Deep in her forests sowed the seed Which was to serve man's earthly need. When wisps of smoke first upwards curled From pilgrim fires, upon the world Unnoticed and unseen, began God's second work of grace for man. Here where the savage roamed and fought, God sowed the seed of nobler thought; Here to the land we love to claim, The pioneers of freedom came; Here has been cradled all that's best In every human mind and breast. For full four hundred years and more Our land has stretched her welcoming shore To weary feet from soils afar; Soul-shackled serfs of king and czar Have journeyed here and toiled and sung And talked of freedom to their young, And God above has smiled to see This precious work of liberty, And watched this second gift He gave The dreary lives of men to save.