Liberty not dead.
Written in reply to a poem, “Liberty — dead,” which appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer, by Mrs. Alice Key Pendleton, daughter of the author of The Star-Spangled Banner. What though the daughter of a sire
Who gave the noblest song
To grace a nation's poetry
That echo shall prolong,
Whose matchless words and trumpet tones
Make dying soldiers strong;
What though she sing in cadenced verse
That Liberty is dead,
And softly chides the gathered crowd
By whom no tears are shed,
Though powerless seems the snowy hand,
And marble-like the head--
She wrongs the men who, fearless, stood
By dark Antietam's side,
And those whose patriot-blood, outpoured,
The plain of Shiloh dyed,
And those who braved the iron hail
On Mississippi's tide.
She wrongs the fathers, mothers, who
Their children send to war;
For them great Liberty still lives--
Still shineth as a star,
Which passing clouds a moment hide,
Without the power to mar.
What though a moment pallid now,
And lustreless her eye,
The people's will her mighty breath,
She cannot, dare not die;
In homes like ours, her glorious lot
Is Immortality.
Thus living, and to live for aye,
On mountain or in hall,
In vain will rhythmic verse essay
To spread her funeral pall,
And tell her children Liberty,
Alas!
is dead to all
[2]
Ah!
no, her march o'er mountain-tops
Shall be from sea to sea,
Her music as she sweeps along,
The glorious song of Key!
The patriot statesman's stirring song,
The Anthem of the Free!
