Reply To: Lets hear it for the emergency workers

Popa,

You are right. That is the last verse. What I learned in public school in Maryland was the first verse:

The despot’s heel is on thy shore,

Maryland, my Maryland!

His torch is at thy temple door,

Maryland, my Maryland!

Avenge the patriotic gore

That flecked the streets of Baltimore,

And be the battle queen of yore,

Maryland! My Maryland!

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The “patriotic gore” was when a mob of southern sympathizers attacked the US Army during the early days of the civil war. Basically, the song is seditious. It turns out that there is another 19th century “Maryland, my Maryland” poem, with the same meter, that isn’t seditious and there was a serious proposal in the Maryland General Assembly to replace the seditious lyrics with the non-seditious ones.