THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY. WHAT flower is this that greets the morn, In savage Nature's far abode Its tender seed our fathers sowed; The storm-winds rocked its swelling bud, Its opening leaves were streaked with blood, Behold its streaming rays unite, One mingling flood of braided light, – The red that fires the Southern rose, Then hail the banner of the free, The blades of heroes fence it round, And plants an empire on the sea! Then hail the banner of the free, Thy sacred leaves, fair Freedom's flower, In blackening frost or crimson dew, – Then hail the banner of the free, THE SWEET LITTLE MAN. DEDICATED TO THE STAY-AT-HOME RANGERS. Now, while our soldiers are fighting our battles, All the brave boys under canvas are sleeping, You with the terrible warlike moustaches, You with the waist made for sword-belts and sashes, Where are your shoulder-straps, sweet little man ? Bring him the buttonless garment of woman! Give him for escort a file of young misses, All the fair maidens about him shall cluster, O, but the Apron-string Guards are the fellows! Have we a nation to save? In the first place Saving ourselves is the sensible plan, Surely the spot where there's shooting's the worst place Where I can stand, says the sweet little man. THE SWEET LITTLE MAN. Catch me confiding my person with strangers! Such was the stuff of the Malakoff-takers, Such were the soldiers that scaled the Redan; Truculent housemaids and bloodthirsty Quakers, Brave not the wrath of the sweet little man! 299 Yield him the sidewalk, ye nursery maidens! Sauve qui peut! Bridget, and right about! Ann ;— Fierce as a shark in a school of menhadens, See him advancing, the sweet little man! When the red flails of the battle-field's threshers When the brown soldiers come back from the borders, How will he look while his features they scan? How will he feel when he gets marching orders, Signed by his lady love? sweet little man! |