Immortal Songs of Camp and Field

Louis Banks

Louis Albert Banks

Immortal Songs of Camp and Field / The Story of their Inspiration together with Striking Anecdotes connected with their History

THE AMERICAN FLAG

When Freedom, from her mountain height,

Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there!

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes

The milky baldric of the skies,

And striped its pure celestial white

With streakings of the morning light;

Then, from his mansion in the sun,

She called her eagle bearer down,

And gave into his mighty hand

The symbol of her chosen land!

Majestic monarch of the cloud!

Who rear’st aloft thy regal form,

To hear the tempest trumpings loud,

And see the lightning-lances driven,

When stride the warriors of the storm

And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven!

Child of the sun! To thee ’tis given

To guard the banner of the free,

To hover in the sulphur smoke,

To ward away the battle stroke,

And bid its blendings shine afar

Like rainbows on the cloud of war,

The harbingers of Victory.

Flag of the brave! Thy folds shall fly,

The sign of hope and triumph high!

When speaks the signal trumpet tone

And the long line comes gleaming on

(Ere yet the life-blood warm and wet

Has dimmed the glistening bayonet),

Each soldier eye shall brightly turn

To where thy sky-born glories burn,

And, as his springing steps advance,

Catch war and vengeance from the glance.

And when the cannon mouthing cloud

Heaves in wild wreaths the battle shroud,

And gory sabres rise and fall,

Like shoots of flame on midnight’s pall;

There shall thy meteor-glances glow,

And cowering foes shall shrink beneath

Each gallant arm that strikes below

That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! On ocean wave

Thy stars shall glitter o’er the brave;

When death, careering on the gale,

Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,

And frighted waves rush wildly back

Before the broadside’s reeling rack,

Each dying wanderer of the sea

Shall look at once to heaven and thee,

And smile to see thy splendors fly

In triumph o’er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart’s hope and home,

By angel hands to valor given;

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome

And all thy hues were born in heaven!

As fixed as yonder orb divine,

That saw thy bannered blaze unfurled,

Shall thy proud stars resplendent shine,

The guard and glory of the world.

    – Joseph Rodman Drake.

The author of The American Flag was born to poverty, but by hard work he obtained a good education, and studied medicine under Dr. Nicholas Romayne, by whom he was greatly beloved. He obtained his degree and shortly afterward, in October, 1816, he was married to Sarah Eckford, who brought him a good deal of wealth. Two years later, his health failing, he visited New Orleans for the winter, hoping for its recovery. He returned to New York in the spring, only to die in the following autumn, September, 1820, at the age of twenty-five. He is buried at Hunt’s Point, in Westchester County, New York, where he spent some of the years of his boyhood. On his monument are these lines, written by his friend, Fitz-Green Halleck, —

“None knew him but to love him,

Nor named him but to praise.”

Drake was a poet from his childhood. The anecdotes preserved of his early youth show the fertility of his imagination. His first rhymes were a conundrum which he perpetrated when he was but five years old. He was one day, for some childish offense, punished by imprisonment in a portion of the garret shut off by some wooden bars. His sisters stole up to witness his suffering condition, and found him pacing the room, with something like a sword on his shoulder, watching an incongruous heap on the floor, in the character of Don Quixote at his vigils over the armor in the church. He called a boy of his acquaintance, named Oscar, “Little