The Men Of Iowa!

BY O. H. M. DYRES

When the cloud of treason darkened
Freedom’s light in Sumter’s sky,
Bravely stepped they forth to battle,
There to conquer or to die.

Left the plow within the furrow;
Left the ox within the stall;
Left the corn leaves sprouting upward –
To respond to Freedom’s call.

Left the grass unmown to wither,
And the golden grain unstored;
Left the anvil for the bayonet,
And the sickle for the sword.

Men are wanted – true men wanted
To defend a Nation’s flag –
Hearts may wither in their sorrow,
Yet the spirit never lag.

Forth they come – a host of freemen
From the setting of the sun –
Every hand was a thousand –
While their hearts they were as one.

Soft Lamine had seen their coming –
Sweeping Osage heard their cry,
As they struggle in the battle,
‘Neath the summer’s sunny sky.

Gleamed their camp fires as a thousand
On the darkling Tennessee;
Where the mistletoe was clinging
To the aged cypress tree.

Like the avalanche descending,
Like the rolling of the flood,
They have swooped the field of battle,
And have bathed it with their blood.

They have met the foe and conquered,
On the mountain and the plain;
They are reaping well the harvest,
Though a thousand are the slain.

Long shall wave that starry banner
That they bore so bravely on;
Long shall freemen point with triumph
To the battles they have won.

-{St. Louis Republican.

Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 3, 1862, p. 3