alone.
If still more beautiful to see
The Stars and Stripes o'er men shall wave
And finer shall my country be,
To-morrow let me find my grave.

To-night life seems so fair and sweet,
Yet tyranny is stalking here,
And hate and lust and foul deceit
Hang heavy on the atmosphere.
Injustice seeks to throttle right,
And laughter's stifled to a sigh.
If death can take so great a blight
From human lives, then let me die.

If death must be the cost of life,
And freedom's terms are human souls,
Into the thickest of the strife
Then let me go to pay the tolls.
I would enrich my native land,
New splendor to her flag I'd give,
If where I fall shall freedom stand,
And where I die shall freedom live.

To-morrow death with me may trade;
Let me not quibble o'er the price;
But may I, once the bargain's made,
With courage meet the sacrifice.
If happiness for ages long
My little term of life can buy,
God, for my country make me strong;
To-morrow let me bravely die.

The Flag on the Farm

We've raised a flagpole on the farm
And flung Old Glory to the sky,
And it's another touch of charm
That seems to cheer the passer-by,
But more than that, no matter where
We're laboring in wood and field,
We turn and see it in the air,
Our promise of a greater yield.
It whispers to us all day long
From dawn to dusk: "Be true, be strong;
Who falters now with plough or hoe
Gives comfort to his country's foe."

It seems to me I've never tried
To do so much about the place,
Nor been so slow to come inside,
But since I've got the Flag to face,
Each night when I come home to rest
I feel that I must look up there
And say: "Old Flag, I've done my best,
To-day I've tried to do my share."
And sometimes, just to catch the breeze,
I stop my work, and o'er the trees
Old Glory fairly shouts my way:
"You're shirking far too much to-day!"

The help have caught the spirit, too;
The hired man takes off his cap
Before the old red, white and blue,
Then to the horses says: "Giddap!"
And starting bravely to the field
He tells the milkmaid by the door:
"We're going to make these acres yield
More than they've ever done before."
She smiles to he