164. “the Rattlesnake Banner.”
by W. M. W.
Sung by the 7,000 “chivalry” before a small audience of Northern mudsills, at the taking of Sumter. Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose serpentine coilings through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming:
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our snake was still there;
Oh, say, does the Rattlesnake Banner yet wave
O'er the land of the Bond, and the home of the Slave!
On the isle dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's starving host in cowardice shudders,
What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half uncovers?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'Tis his snakoship, our Banner — oh, long may it wave
O'er the land of the Bond, and the home of the Slave!
And where is the band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war, and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
The “invincible South” has dispelled their delusion;
The mudsills are conquered — the victory's ours;
The foe now acknowledges our chivalric powers,
And the Rattlesnake Banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the Bond, and the home of the Slave.
Oh, thus be it ever, when Slavers shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation;
Blest with cotton and niggers, may our Rattlesnake land
Praise the power that hath made (?) and preserved (?) us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause is so just,
And this be our motto — In Davis we trust!
And the Star-spangled Banner no longer shall wave
O'er the land of the Bond, and the home of the Slave.
