Pro Patria Et Gloria.

The lights blaze high in our brilliant rooms;                 Fair are the maidens who throng our halls;             Soft, through the warm and perfumed air,                 The languid music swells and falls.             The "Seventh" dances and flirts to-night                 All we are fit for, so they say,             We fops and weaklings, who masquerade                 As soldiers, sometimes, in black and gray.             We can manage to make a street parade,                 But, in a fight, we'd be sure to run.             Defend you! pshaw, the thought's absurd!                 How about April, sixty-one?             What was it made your dull blood thrill?                 Why did you cheer, and weep, and pray?             Why did each pulse of your hearts mark time                 To the tramp of the boys in black and gray?             You've not forgotten the nation's call                 When down in the South the war-cloud burst;             "Troops for the front!" Do you ever think                 Who answered, and marched, and got there first?             Whose bayonets first scared Maryland?                 Whose were the colors that showed the way?             Who set the step for the marching North?                 Some holiday soldiers in black and gray.             "Pretty boys in their pretty suits!"                 "Too pretty by far to take under fire!"             A pretty boy in a pretty suit                 Lay once in Bethel's bloody mire.             The first to fall in the war's first fight                 Raise him tenderly. Wash away             The blood and mire from the pretty suit;                 For Winthrop died in the black and gray.             In the shameful days in sixty-three,                 When the city fluttered in abject fear,             'Neath the mob's rude grasp, who ever thought                 "God! if the Seventh were only here!"             Our drums were heard the ruffian crew                 Grew tired of riot the self-same day             By chance of course you don't suppose                 They feared the dandies in black and gray!             So we dance and flirt in our listless style                 While the waltzes dream in the drill-room arch,             What would we do if the order came,                 Sudden and sharp "Let the Seventh march!"             Why, we'd faint, of course; our cheeks would pale;                 Our knees would tremble, our fears but stay,             That order I think has come ere this                 To those holiday troops in black and gray.             "What would we do!" We'd drown our drums                 In a storm of cheers, and the drill-room floor             Would ring with rifles. Why, you fools,                 We'd do as we've always done before!             Do our duty! Take what comes                 With laugh and jest, be it feast or fray             But we're dandies yes, for we'd rather die                 Than sully the pride of our black and gray.