The Revel

Ho! sturdy trudgers by the plow
     Along New England’s summer hills,
To whose keen axes, Echo now
     Through all her forest kingdom thrills,
Forsake the honest plow and axe,
     Gird on the weapons of your sires,
To tramp in Murder’s gory tracks,
     While Dotage weeps bside your fires!

Flock from the keen air in whose breath
     Health bounds, and Joy delighted trips,
To take the loathly kiss of Death
     From tropic Fever’s yellow lips:
Leave Home, and homely love, and go
     To join the gay triumphal dance
Led by the Black-fiend, Vomito,
     And flanked by many a hidden lance.

Ho, to the Revel, Freemen all!
     They wait with cannon mute, and drum,
Lords of the Montezumas’ Hall,
     To peal your welcome when ye come.
Trip lightly o’er their arid lands,
     One measure tread with burning Thirst,
Then give your parched and shriveled hands
     To Plagues on all the hot air nurst.

On to the Desert and Morass,
     Unseen the Beath-shapes revel there;
On to the yawning Mountain-pass
     Beneath the swart Guerrilla’s lair!
Lurks there the watcher on his peak,
     Speed well along the narrow glen;
When tyrant Power pursues the Weak,
     The hills themselves shall teem with men.

Ha! look aloft, the very Rocks
     Come dancing down in giant waltz,
And keen eyes, subtle as the fox
     Flash joy to see their wild assaults!
Leap high, ye children of the brave,
     Who feast the gods to buy a name,
The Dungeon, and the walking grave
     Shall garner the reapt sheaves of fame.

Now fill with Blood the wassail bowl,
     Let carrion brutes inter your dead,—
I hear the solemn drum-beat roll, —
     Another measure ye must tread.
The booming cannons, roaring loud,
     Drown not the muskets’ rapid crash,
Gleam through the riven battle-cloud
     The rifle’s blaze, and sabre’s flash.

Hewn down, impaled with angry steel,
     Shivered before the brazen rain—
Or slipping, with unsteady heel
     Plashed in the dead men’s oozy brain,
They dance their round, while frenzy’s yell,
     Cleaving the smothering battle-smoke—
Rings like the eldest howl of Hell
     When falling fiends the silence broke.

Ha, now, how gleam the golden Halls
     On eyes through stiffening blood that glance?
And limbs ploughed through by musket balls
     How speed they in the victor-dance?
Ho, to the Revel! Death is there,
     With all his minions and allies,
Blood dropping from his matted hair,
     And Pest out-gleaming from his eyes.

Quaff deep the bowl and strike the drum,
     La Palma’s kites shal yield their prey,
Her Slain on purple limbs shall come
     To leap with those of Monterey.
There one shall bare his shivered jaw,
     Another stretch his fleshless thighs,
While from rank fen, and wild-dog’s maw
     The nameless sons of glory rise,

And press to yours their gory lips,
     Link close to yours each torn right arm,
And while from wounds the black blood drips,
     Leap foot to foot and palm to palm.
Ho, haste to join the Revel there!
     New England’s gallant children go,
Where triumph is your shame, and where
     The mute Plague smites for Mexico.