104 “Qui Vive”

“QUI vive!” The sentry’s musket rings,

The channelled bayonet gleams;

High o’er him, like a raven’s wings

The broad tri-colored banner flings

Its shadow, rustling as it swings

Pale in the moonlight beams;

Pass on! while steel-clad sentries keep

Their vigil o’er the monarch’s sleep,

Thy bare, unguarded breast

Asks not the unbroken, bristling zone

That girds yon sceptred trembler’s throne;—

Pass on, and take thy rest!

“Qui vive!” How oft the midnight air

That startling cry has borne!

How oft the evening breeze has fanned

The banner of this haughty land,

O’er mountain snow and desert sand,

Ere yet its folds were torn!

Through Jena’s carnage flying red,

Or tossing o’er Marengo’s dead,

Or curling on the towers

Where Austria’s eagle quivers yet,

And suns the ruffled plumage, wet

With battle’s crimson showers!

“Qui vive!” And is the sentry’s cry,—

The sleepless soldier’s hand,—

Are these—the painted folds that fly

And lift their emblems, printed high

On morning mist and sunset sky—

The guardians of a land?

No! If the patriot’s pulses sleep,

How vain the watch that hirelings keep,—

The idle flag that waves,

When Conquest, with his iron heel,

Treads down the standards and the steel

That belt the soil of slaves!