Hymn Poem by Albert Pike

Awake! awake! Hear Freedom calling
Upon her sons to fly to arms;
While Treason's trumpet-tongue appalling
Is madly sounding its alarms.
Behold the traitors darkly scheming,
While Anarchy awakes again,
Within the darkness of whose brain
Red crime and perjury are teeming.

To arms! to arms! ye brave;
The avenging sword unsheath!
March on! march on! all hearts resolved
On victory or death!

Is there a heart that now will falter?
Live, base, ignoble heart, in chains!
Live, with low demagogues to palter!
Disgrace the free blood in your veins!
Is there a man that strikes not for us,
Within the shade of Freedom's throne?
Pale traitor, recreant! fly, and moan
In Slavery's iron realm of horrors!

To arms, &c.

Traitors and lunatics are aiming
To break the Union's golden chain;
Secession's fires are fiercely flaming,
And Freedom's heart is racked with pain.
Her eye grows dim, her cheek is paling;
And shall we tamely sit and smile,
While Treason's feet our land defile,
And Anarchy is loudly railing?

To arms, &c.

Shall even our children execrate us,
That we have reared them to be slaves?
Our fathers' mouldering bones upbraid us,
Stirring in their deep, narrow graves?
Our wives and mothers hate and spurn us,
As basest of the base? No! no!
To liberty or death we go;
Free let them bless, or corses mourn us!

To arms, &c.

Oh, sainted sires! look down upon us,
And aid us to defend the high
And sacred heritage ye won us!
Freemen we'll live, or freemen die.
The stars and stripes are floating o'er us;
Our fathers' spirits lead the front;
We welcome the fierce battle's brunt:—
Treason and crime shall flee before us!

To arms, &c.