Again to the battle, Achaians!

Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance!

Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree,

It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Song of the Greeks.

Ye mariners of England,

That guard our native seas;

Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,

The battle and the breeze!

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Ye Mariners of England.

That never set a squadron in the field,

Nor the division of a battle knows.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 1.

Her father loved me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To the very moment that he bade me tell it:

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,

Of being taken by the insolent foe

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence

And portance in my travels' history;

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.

But to the hero, when his sword

Has won the battle for the free,

Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;

And in its hollow tones are heard

The thanks of millions yet to be.

Alfred Bunn (1790-1860): Marco Bozzaris.

For freedom's battle, once begun,

Bequeath'd by bleeding sire to son,

Though baffled oft, is ever won.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Giaour. Line 123.

On a lone barren isle, where the wild roaring billows

Assail the stern rock, and the loud tempests rave,

The hero lies still, while the dew-drooping willows,

Like fond weeping mourners, lean over his grave.

The lightnings may flash and the loud thunders rattle;

He heeds not, he hears not, he's free from all pain;

He sleeps his last sleep, he has fought his last battle;

No sound can awake him to glory again!

Leonard Heath: The Grave of Bonaparte.

For he who fights and runs away

May live to fight another day;

But he who is in battle slain

Can never rise and fight again.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Art of Poetry on a New Plan (1761). Vol. ii. p. 147.

In the lost battle,

Borne down by the flying,

Where mingles war's rattle

With groans of the dying.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Marmion. Canto iii. Stanza 11.

1 W.  When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

2 W.  When the hurlyburly's done,

When the battle's lost and won.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 1.

Heard so oft

In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge

Of battle.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 275.

Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth

On war's red techstone rang true metal;

Who ventered life an' love an' youth

For the gret prize o' death in battle?

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. x.

When the stormy winds do blow;

When the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Ye Mariners of England.

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,

Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,

Welcome to your gory bed,

Or to victory!

Now's the day and now's the hour;

See the front o' battle lour.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Bannockburn.

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,

Would men observingly distil it out.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Who in life's battle firm doth stand

Shall bear hope's tender blossoms

Into the silent land!

J G Von Salis (1762-1834): The Silent Land.

March to the battle-field,

The foe is now before us;

Each heart is Freedom's shield,

And heaven is shining o'er us.

B. E. O'Meara (1778-1836): March to the Battle-Field.