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IRISH SONGS AND LYRICS 235 |
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Who bravely that day kept the cause of the South. The quarrel is done—God avert such another;
The lesson it brought we should evermore heed: Who loveth the flag is a man and a brother,
No matter what birth or what race or what creed. |
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ENSIGN EPPS, THE COLOR-BEARER
E
NSIGN EPPS, at the battle of Flanders, Sowed a seed of glory and duty, That flowers and flames in the height and beauty Like a crimson lily with heart of gold, To-day, when the wars of Ghent are old, And buried as deep as their dead commanders.
Ensign Epps was the color-bearer,—
No matter on which side, Philip or Earl;
Their cause was the shell—his deed was the pearl.
Scarce more than a lad he had been a sharer That day in the wildest work of the field.
He was wounded and spent, and the fight was lost;
His comrades were slain, or a scattered host.
But stainless and scatheless, out of the strife* He had carried his colors safer than life.
By the river's brink, without weapon or shield, He faced the victors. The thick heart-mist He dashed from his eyes, and the silk he kissed Ere he held it aloft in the setting sun, As proudly as if the fight were won;
And he smiled when they ordered him to yield, |
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