Our Country to Thee

Air: Star Spangled Banner

Our country, to thee, in the cannon's fierce light,
We have pledged the best blood of the patriot streaming;
And the ending of strife for the cause of the Right
Found a nation redeemed and with victory beaming:
But the sword laid aside, with the warrior's pride,
Left something to guard with a vigilance tried;
And the freeman's first duty, his soldiering done,
Is in peace to preserve what in battle was won!


From North unto South, from the East to the West,
Our dear land it is free, and the peer of all others;
To the men whom we met on the breastwork's dread crest
We have given our hands and are proudly their brothers.
Not to them is the blame; but the ones in their name,
Who’d rob our dead heroes of honor and fame:
And the way future warfare with brothers to shun,
Is in peace to preserve what in battle was won!


No trust give we yet to the paltering crew -
That would wipe the brave past from our history's pages;
Strip our Lincoln and Grant of the glories their due,
And surrender us back to the slave-driving ages.
In defeat they'll return till success they shall earn
By faithfully conning the lesson they learn:
That the pledge that all freemen are victors upon,
Is in peace to preserve what in battle was won!


Then cheer till the skies ring again with your cries,
For the Pride of the West and the Statesman who mates him;
The Republic's great heart with his fortunes shall rise,
And be glad when in Washington's place it instates him.
After Lincoln and Grant, who more fit for our chant,
As worthy of Uncle Sam's Century Plant,
Than our Garfield and Arthur, whose purpose, begun,
Is in peace to preserve what in battle was won!