Immortal Songs of Camp and Field

The young poet was entirely free from vanity and affectation, and had no morbid seeking for popular applause. When he was on his deathbed, at his wife’s request, Doctor DeKay collected and copied all his poems which could be found and took them to him. “See, Joe,” said he to him, “what I have done.” “Burn them,” he replied; “they are valueless.”

Drake’s impulsive nature, as well as the spirit and force, yet simplicity, of expression, with his artless manner, gained him many friends. He had that native politeness which springs from benevolence – that would stop to pick up the hat or the crutch of an old servant, or fly to the relief of a child. His acquaintance with Fitz-Green Halleck arose in a romantic incident on the Battery one day when, in a retiring shower, the heavens were spanned by a rainbow. DeKay and Drake were together, and Halleck, a new acquaintance, was talking with them; the conversation taking the turn of some passing expression of the wishes of the moment, Halleck whimsically remarked that it would be heaven for him, just then, to ride on that rainbow and read Campbell. The idea was very pleasing to Drake. He seized Halleck by the hand and from that moment until his untimely death they were bosom friends.

ADAMS AND LIBERTY

Ye sons of Columbia, who bravely have fought
For those rights which unstain’d from your sires had descended,
May you long taste the blessings your valor has bought,
And your sons reap the soil which your fathers defended!
’Mid the reign of mild peace,
May your nation increase,
With the glory of Rome, and the wisdom of Greece.
And ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

In a clime whose rich vales feed the marts of the world,
Whose shores are unshaken by Europe’s commotion,
The trident of Commerce should never be hurl’d
To increase the legitimate powers of the ocean.
But should pirates invade,
Though in thunder array’d,
Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade;
For ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sway,
Had justly ennobled our nation in story,
Till the dark clouds of faction obscured our young day,
And enveloped the sun of American glory.
But let traitors be told,
Who their country have sold,
And bartered their God for his image in gold,
That ne’er will the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood,
And society’s base threats with wide dissolution;
May peace, like the dove who return’d from the flood,
Find an ark of abode in our mild constitution.
But, though peace is our aim,
Yet the boon we disclaim,
If bought by our sovereignty, justice, or fame;
For ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

’Tis the fire of the flint each American warms:
Let Rome’s haughty victors beware of collision;
Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms,
We’re a world by ourselves, and disdain a provision.
While with patriot pride
To our laws we’re allied,
No foe can subdue us, no faction divide;
For ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

Our mountains are crown’d with imperial oak,
Whose roots, like our liberties, ages have nourish’d;
But long ere our nation submits to the yoke,
Not a tree shall be left on the field where it flourish’d.
Should invasion impend,
Every grove would descend
From the hilltops they shaded our shores to defend;
For ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

Let our patriots destroy Anarch’s pestilent worm,
Lest our liberty’s growth should be check’d by corrosion;
Then let clouds thicken round us: we heed not the storm;
Our realm fears no shock, but the earth’s own explosion.
Foes assail us in vain,
Though their fleets bridge the main,
For our altars and laws with our lives we’ll maintain;
For ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

Should the tempest of war overshadow our land,
Its bolts could ne’er rend Freedom’s temple asunder;
For, unmov’d, at its portal would Washington stand,
And repulse with his breast the assaults of the thunder!
His sword from the sleep
Of its scabbard would leap,
And conduct, with its point, every flash to the deep;
For ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

Let Fame to the world sound America’s voice;
No intrigues can her sons from their government sever:
Her pride is her Adams, their laws are his choice,
And shall flourish till Liberty slumbers forever.
Then unite heart and hand,
Like Leonidas’ band,
And swear to the God of the ocean and land,
That ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

    – Robert Treat Paine.
The father of the author of Adams and Liberty, or as it has been more usually entitled in later days, Ye Sons of Columbia, was the Robert Treat Paine who was one of the immortal signers of the Declaration of Independence. The author of this hymn was given by his parents the name of Thomas, but on account of that being the name of a notorious infidel of his time, he appealed to the legislature of Massachusetts to give him a Christian name; thereafter he took the name of his father, Robert Treat Paine.