The Muster:

The Abrahamic river —

Patriarch of floods,

Calls the roll of all his streams

And watery mutitudes:

Torrent cries to torrent,

The rapids hail the fall;

With shouts the inland freshets

Gather to the call.

The quotas of the Nation,

Like the water-shed of waves,

Muster into union —

Eastern warriors, Western braves.

Martial strains are mingling,

Though distant far the bands,

And the wheeling of the squadrons

Is like surf upon the sands.

The bladed guns are gleaming —

Drift in lengthened trim,

Files on files for hazy miles —

Nebulously dim.

O Milky Way of armies —

Star rising after star,

New banners of the Commonwealths,

And eagles of the War.

The Abrahamic river

To sea-wide fullness fed,

Pouring from the thaw-lands

By the God of floods is led:

His deep enforcing current

The streams of ocean own,

And Europe's marge is evened

By rills from Kansas lone.