The Patriot's Bride

Will you leave the fond bosom of Home, where
Joy hath been from your earliest waking?
Can you give its endearments to come, where
Life hath many a hot heart-aching!
Have you counted the cost to stand by me,
In the battle I fight for Man?
Shall your womanly love deify me,
Who stand in the world's dark ban!
O, a daring high soul you will need, dear love,
To brave the life-battle with me:
For your true heart may oftentimes bleed, dear love,
And your sweet eyes dim tearfully.

Sweet! know you of gallant hearts perishing, —
The fine spirits that dumbly bow!
For a little of Fortune's cherishing,
They are breaking in agony now!
And without the sunshine that life needeth,
Alas! Sweet! for me and for you:
But little the careless world heedeth
For love like ours, tender and true!
O, a daring high soul you will need, dear love,
To brave the life-battle with me:
For your true heart may oftentimes bleed, dear love,
And your sweet eyes dim tearfully.

Well, you've sworn, I have sworn, God hath bound
us,
In a covenant the world shall not part:
I have flung my love's war-cloak around us,
And you live in each pulse of my heart!
It may be our name in Earth's story
Shall endure when we are no more;
For love lives while the Stars burn in glory,
And the Flowers bud on Earth's green floor.
But a daring high soul you will need, dear love,
To brave the life -battle with me:
For your true heart may oftentimes bleed, dear love,
And your sweet eyes dim tearfully.