_Tho'_ faint from fighting--wounded--wan,
To camp you'll turn your feet,
And no sweet, smiling, happy home,
Your saddened hearts will greet:
No hands of love--no eyes of light--
Will make your wants their care,
Or soothe you thro' the dreary night,
Or smooth your clotted hair.
But crushed by sickness, famine, thirst,
You'll strive in vain to sleep,
Mid corpses mangled, blackened, burst,
And blood and mire deep;
While horrid groans, and fiendish yells,
And every loathsome stench,
Will kindle images of hell
You'll strive in vain to quench.
Yet _on_--press on, in all your might,
With banners to the field,
And mingle in the glorious fight,
With Satan for your shield:
For marble columns, if you die,
_May_ on them bear your name;
While papers, tho' they sometimes lie,
Will praise you, or will blame.
Yet woe! to those who build a house,
Or kingdom, not by right,--
Who in their feebleness propose
Against the Lord to fight.
For when the Archangel's trumpet sounds,
And all the dead shall hear,
And haste from earth's remotest bounds
In judgment to appear,--
When every work, and word, and _thought_,
Well known or hid from sight,
Before the Universe is brought
To blaze in lines of light,--
When by the test of _perfect_ law
Your '_glorious_' course is tried,
On what resources will you draw?--
In what will you confide?
For know that eyes of awful light
Burn on you from above,
Where nought but kindness meets the sight,
And all the air is love.
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