The Drum.

O the drum!          There is some              Intonation in thy grum      Monotony of utterance that strikes the spirit dumb,      As we hear          Through the clear              And unclouded atmosphere,      Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the car!      There's a part          Of the art              Of thy music-throbbing heart      That thrills a something in us that awakens with a start,      And in rhyme          With the chime              And exactitude of time,      Goes marching on to glory to thy melody sublime.      And the guest          Of the breast              That thy rolling robs of rest      Is a patriotic spirit as a Continental dressed;      And he looms          From the glooms              Of a century of tombs,      And the blood he spilled at Lexington in living beauty blooms.      And his eyes          Wear the guise              Of a purpose pure and wise,      As the love of them is lifted to a something in the skies      That is bright          Red and white,              With a blur of starry light,      As it laughs in silken ripples to the breezes day and night.      There are deep          Hushes creep              O'er the pulses as they leap,      As thy tumult, fainter growing, on the silence falls asleep,      While the prayer          Rising there              Wills the sea and earth and air      As a heritage to Freedom's sons and daughters everywhere.      Then, with sound          As profound              As the thunderings resound,      Come thy wild reverberations in a throe that shakes the ground,      And a cry          Flung on high,              Like the flag it flutters by,      Wings rapturously upward till it nestles in the sky.      O the drum!          There is some              Intonation in thy grum      Monotony of utterance that strikes the spirit dumb,      As we hear          Through the clear              And unclouded atmosphere,      Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the ear!