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And thou, the Emblem waving over all! Delicate beauty, a word to thee, (it may be salutary,) Remember thou hast not always been as here to-day so comfortably ensovereign’d, In other scenes than these have I observ’d thee flag, Not quite so trim and whole and freshly blooming in folds of stainless silk, But I have seen thee bunting, to tatters torn upon thy splinter’d staff, Or clutch’d to some young color-bearer’s breast with desperate hands, Savagely struggled for, for life or death, fought over long, ’Mid cannons’ thunder-crash and many a curse and groan and yell, and rifle-volleys cracking sharp, And moving masses as wild demons surging, and lives as nothing risk’d, For thy mere remnant grimed with dirt and smoke and sopp’d in blood, For sake of that, my beauty, and that thou might’st dally as now secure up there, Many a good man have I seen go under.