158 WAR SONG. 



Come, come ! my Hearts, to the battle plain, 

 The patriot soul shines out in parting ; 



'Twere better tears bedewed the slain 

 Than valour live to see them starting : 



O ! Could our matrons see the steel 

 From twenty thousand scabbards leaping, 



They then would know what heroes feel 

 And think their virtue stained by weeping. 



Come, come ! my Hearts, to the battle plain, 



Our Country is preserved in hasting, 

 If honour be not worth a pain 



Its nectared fruit is not worth tasting : 

 The highest branch of human bliss 



Is only what our fancies make it, 

 And those its full enjoyment miss 



Who have but half a soul to take it. 



Come, come ! my Hearts, to the battle plain, 



A lingering death may yet overtake us ; 

 Who would not think that virtue vain 



That lives to see the world forsake us : 

 To rot unheeded and unsung, 



Or live alike despised and hoary, 

 Is a stern precept which the young 



Would only teach to die with glory. 



Come, come ! my Hearts, to the battle plain, 



Nor let us shame the race that bore us, 

 Our's be the conflict to maintain 



The enemy's to fly before us : 

 In common with our Country's hordes 



We live in lands the great inherit 

 Then seek we titles with our swords, 



And plough the fields we're known to merit. 



HARTON. 

 Buckfattleigh. 



