American Old Time Song Lyrics: 61 The Last Roll Call
Theater, Music-Hall, Nostalgic, Irish & Historic Old Songs, Volume 61
THE LAST ROLL CALL.
Copyright, 1892, by Frank Harding.
Written and Composed by Charles Osborne.
Fifty years ago last Friday, on a wild and stormy day.
I was fighting for our colors, many thousand miles away;
Tho' we were but one to twenty, still we beat them-yes, they lost!
We were victors, heroes all; but what a price that vict'ry cost!
Chorus.
Side by side, like a crimson tide. in the days of long ago,
On we dash'd, and our sabres crash'd, till we conquered ev'ry foe;
But one by one, ere the fight was done, I saw my comrades fall,
And I was the only one left to answer the Last Roll Call!
Fifty brave and stalwart soldiers thrashed a host of deadly foes,
Fifty sabres flashed like lightning ere the shout of vict'ry rose;
Like an avalanche of thunder on we swept-Hurrah: they run:
Then I rode back home in silence, all had fallen there but one.-Cho.
By the dim and ghostly torchlight, there we sought them where they fell,
They who'd saved their country's honor, they who'd fought & died so well;
Who is this, beneath those shadows? Halt! lads, gently raise his head;
Turn the light this way, men-silence, Jack, my own twin brother, dead.
-Cho.