They fell, who lifted up a hand And bade the sun in heaven stand! They smote and fell, who set the bars Against the progress of the stars, And stayed the march of motherland!
They stood, who saw the future come On through the fight's delirium! They smote and stood, who held the hope Of nations on that slippery slope Amid the cheers of Christendom.
In adversity's hard school the Old Soldier learned transcendent lessons of human brotherhood such as no other school could have taught him, dilute the tincture, water the stock, or inflate the currency of educational methods how we may. Escaping from cruel prison pens, where there was no one to love nor to caress, and with no light to direct but that sun of the sleepless, melancholy star, his hand reached out into the darkness searching for a guide; it was grasped by another hand, warm, loyal and true; the hand of a man and a brother; a black hand indeed, but it was all the same in the dark.
He learned respect for authority and order, scorning the malcontents, who, hornet-like, always stand sting-end uppermost, stinging their friends to show their independence, their enemies to show their impartiality, and each other to keep in practice; unwholesome whether in conjunction or apogee; a bundle of tinder and rockets, on a raft of smoke-storm, with sparks wildly flying; each a flask for brittleness, whether decipherable into a nursing bottle or a sulphuric carboy. He learned to value his country as more precious for his personal sacrifice, stimulating his just demand that America shall henceforth be reserved for such as are or wish to be Americans; for those to whom her institutions are a birthright or those who bring due appreciation of her blessings; shaking from her skirts the imported vermin of the slums; spurning back from her shores the redhanded apostles of anarchy, who dream of freedom in the death of law, and search for thrift in robbery and violence.
The Old Soldier is something of a politician. He loves to help save the country again and again, on every convenient occasion. Soon after each and every quadrennial interchange of governmental figure-heads, the whole population is prepared to admit that we have narrowly escaped a vast hemispherical catastrophe. Even when the election has only been carried by a constitutional majority of three--two Winchesters and a shot-gun--the escape is just as grateful. For the campaign torch may then be extinguished; the paroxysm of hysterics illuminated by an aurora borealis vex and vaunt no more. The shout of the torch-bearer, screaming himself into grippe and pneumonia, is quenched. The heeler and the howler are alike silent--they have folded their tepees like Arabs and fled in wild dismay. The candidate no longer inhales the whiff of whisky sours or clasps hands chiefly notable as rich feeding ground for microbes. The precinct chairman, reveling in his labor of lucre, bow-legged but full of enthusiasm, has subsided. The able editor, a man of ice and iron, carrying around a head heavily weighted with unpublished matter, can gaze down the flamboyant vista of his victorious career and take a needed rest.