AN APPEAL <br /> <br />LISTEN, young heroes! your country is calling! <br />Time strikes the hour for the brave and the true! <br />Now, while the foremost are fighting and falling, <br />Fill up the ranks that have opened for you! <br /> <br />You whom the fathers made free and defended, <br />Stain not the scroll that emblazons their fame <br />You whose fair heritage spotless descended, <br />Leave not your children a birthright of shame! <br /> <br />Stay not for questions while Freedom stands gasping! <br />Wait not till Honor lies wrapped in his pall! <br />Brief the lips' meeting be, swift the hands' clasping,-- <br />'Off for the wars!' is enough for them all! <br /> <br />Break from the arms that would fondly caress you! <br />Hark! 't is the bugle-blast, sabres are drawn! <br />Mothers shall pray for you, fathers shall bless you, <br />Maidens shall weep for you when you are gone! <br /> <br />Never or now! cries the blood of a nation, <br />Poured on the turf where the red rose should bloom; <br />Now is the day and the hour of salvation,-- <br />Never or now! peals the trumpet of doom! <br /> <br />Never or now! roars the hoarse-throated cannon <br />Through the black canopy blotting the skies; <br />Never or now! flaps the shell-blasted pennon <br />O'er the deep ooze where the Cumberland lies! <br /> <br />From the foul dens where our brothers are dying, <br />Aliens and foes in the land of their birth,-- <br />From the rank swamps where our martyrs are lying <br />Pleading in vain for a handful of earth,-- <br /> <br />From the hot plains where they perish outnumbered, <br />Furrowed and ridged by the battle-field's plough, <br />Comes the loud summons; too long you have slumbered, <br />Hear the last Angel-trump,--Never or Now!<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/never-or-now/
