Sons of the South, arouse to battle! Gird on your armor for the fight! The Northern Thugs, with dread "war's rattle," Pour on each vale, and glen, and height; Meet them as ocean meets in madness The frail bark on the rocky shore, When crested billows roam and roar, And the wrecked crew go down in sadness: CHORUS.--Arm! Arm! ye Southern braves! Scatter yon vandal hordes! Despots and bandits, fitting food For vultures and your swords. Shall dastard tyrants march their legions To crush the land of Jackson--Lee? Shall freedom fly to other regions, And sons of Yorktown bend the knee? Or shall their "footprints' base pollution" Of Southern soil in blood be purged, And every flying slave be scourged Back to his snows in wild confusion. CHORUS. Vile despots, with their minions knavish, Would drag us back to their embrace; Will freemen brook a chain so slavish? Will brave men take so low a place? O, Heaven! for words--the loathing, scorning We feel for such a Union's bands: To paint with more than mortal hands, And sound our loudest notes of warning. CHORUS. What! Union with a race ignoring The charter of our Nation's birth? Union with bastard slaves adoring The fiend that chains them to the earth? No! we reply in tones of thunder, No! our staunch hills fling back the sound-- No! our hoarse cannon echo round-- No! evermore remain asunder! CHORUS. [Illustration: Stonewall Jackson's Cadet Button.] THE BATTLE OF THE MISSISSIPPI. The tyrant's broad pennant is floating In the South, o'er our waters so blue: On our homes now his foul eye is gloating; The homes of the brave and the true. CHORUS.--But our flag at the "head of the Passes," Is borne by men brave and true; We will teach them to fear our "Manassas;"[2] Three cheers for _our_ Red, White, and Blue. We will give his proud fleet such a greeting As the storm-cloud's shaft to the tree; As the rock to the wave in their meeting-- Is the stroke of the brave and the free. CHORUS. Though his minions may come as the locust, And outnumber the sands of the sea, Their numbers will serve to provoke us, To dare, to die, or live free. CHORUS. Every breeze from the "Crescent" is laden With defiance to the despot on our shore; Strong men, the child, and each maiden, Join in chorus with the cannon's loud roar. CHORUS. SONG FOR THE SOUTH.