Dissolve the Union! Let the blush of shame
Hide with its crimson glow the brazen cheek
Of him who dares avow the trait'rous aim.
'Tis not the true, the wise, the good who speak
Words of such fearful import; but the weak,
Drunk with fanaticism's poisonous wine,
And, reckless of the future, madly seek
To hold their saturnalia at the shrine
Sacred to human Freedom, human rights divine.

Dissolve the Union! Madmen, would ye rend
The glorious motto from our country's crest?
Would ye despoil the stars and stripes, that lend
Home, food, protection to the world's opprest?
Have ye no reverence for the high bequest
That our immortal sires bestowed erewhile?
Has sin defaced the image God imprest
On your humanity, that ye could smile
To see the lurid flames of Freedom's funeral pile?

Dissolve the Union! In the day, the hour
Ye rend the blood-cemented tie in twain,
The fearful cloud of civil war will lower,
O'er every old blue hill and sunny plain,
From torrid Mexico to frigid Maine,
And men will arm, and strange, new banners wave,
And pallid women look on kindred slain;
Brothers will battle, and the life-blood lave
Thresholds that husbands, fathers died in vain to save.

Dissolve the Union! No! ye can not part,
With idle words the blessed ties that bind
In one the interests of that mighty heart
That treasures up the hopes of all mankind.
Awhile, perchance, the blind may lead the blind,
And men may follow phosphorescent light
From beaten paths to quagmires, ere they find
The ray that shone so beautiful and bright,
Was but a phantom-lure to deeper, darker night.

Dissolve the Union! Never! Ye may sow
The seeds of vile dissension o'er the land,
That men may reap in sorrow; ye may show
The world your disregard of all its grand
Eternal interests; but a noble band
Of patriots, tried and true, will still remain,
With heart to heart, and sinewy hand to hand,
To guard from foul dishonor's cankering stain
The jewels God has shrined in Freedom's holy fane.

Dissolve the Union! No! destroy the page
That gives to human sight the hideous scrawl.
Let not the freemen of a future age
Read these detested words; they would recall
Shame, madness, imbecility and all
That mars the noon-tide glory of our time.
True to the undivided, stand or fall.
To waver now is little less than crime;
To battle for the right is glorious, is sublime.