To Colonel Charles P. Dare
of the glorious Penn[sylvani]a. 23rd Reg[imen]t. of U[nion]. V[olunteers].
[from] Flowers of the Union
[No. 1 of 4]
"The Flag of My Country" (1861)
Words by David Bates.
Music by J. C. Beckel.

Philadelphia, PA: MARSH, 1102 Chesnut St.
[Source: 088/011@Levy]

1. The Flag of my country! how proudly I hail
Its stripes and its stars, as it floats in the gale,
From battlement, tow’r and mast o’er a land
As free as the air by whice it is fanned!
A terror alike to the tyrant and slave;
But the standard where rally the good and the brave.

CHORUS [sung after each VERSE]
The Flag of my country, how proudly I hail
Its stripes and its stars, as it floats in the gale.

2. How easy and graceful its tremulous motion,
As it curls to the breeze, like a wave of the ocean,
And spreads its broad folds, like an angel’s bright wing,
O’er the freemen who scorned to be ruled by a king!
Though in war’s dread commotion it first was unfurled,
Yet its motion is freedom and peace to the world.

3. The land it floats o’er is a beautiful land:
They who flung it aloft were a glorious band;
But to guard it from insult or foeman, think you
There are spirits less daring, or hearts now less true?
Be assured in the onset, no freeman will lag,
When called to defend the American Flag.

4. Its country, though young, was a giant at birth;
It commands and receives the proud homage of earth;
And defies all the arts of the crown’d heads combined,
Who would trample it down, and enslave all mankind;
It laughs at their folly, and scorns their vain toil,
For each true man’s sovereign that treads on its soil.

5. His flag is his alter; each hearth is a throne;
The cause of his country, he feels as his own;
And proclaims to all tyrants and pitiful elves,
That intelligent freemen can govern themselves:
Be assured, then, that never a freeman will lag,
When called to protect the American Flag.