The Drum.

O the drum!
    There is some
        Intonation in thy grum
Monotony of utterance that strikes the spirit dumb,
As we hear
    Through the clear
        And unclouded atmosphere,
Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the car!

There's a part
    Of the art
        Of thy music-throbbing heart
That thrills a something in us that awakens with a start,
And in rhyme
    With the chime
        And exactitude of time,
Goes marching on to glory to thy melody sublime.

And the guest
    Of the breast
        That thy rolling robs of rest
Is a patriotic spirit as a Continental dressed;
And he looms
    From the glooms
        Of a century of tombs,
And the blood he spilled at Lexington in living beauty blooms.

And his eyes
    Wear the guise
        Of a purpose pure and wise,
As the love of them is lifted to a something in the skies
That is bright
    Red and white,
        With a blur of starry light,
As it laughs in silken ripples to the breezes day and night.

There are deep
    Hushes creep
        O'er the pulses as they leap,
As thy tumult, fainter growing, on the silence falls asleep,
While the prayer
    Rising there
        Wills the sea and earth and air
As a heritage to Freedom's sons and daughters everywhere.

Then, with sound
    As profound
        As the thunderings resound,
Come thy wild reverberations in a throe that shakes the ground,
And a cry
    Flung on high,
        Like the flag it flutters by,
Wings rapturously upward till it nestles in the sky.

O the drum!
    There is some
        Intonation in thy grum
Monotony of utterance that strikes the spirit dumb,
As we hear
    Through the clear
        And unclouded atmosphere,
Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the ear!