| "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 | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| 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,— | 25 |
| 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? | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| That belt the soil of slaves! | |
