Your flag and my flag, And how it flies today In your land and my land And half a world away! Rose-red and blood-red The stripes forever gleam; Snow-white and soul-white - The good forefathers' dream; Sky-blue and true-blue, with stars to gleam aright - The gloried guidon of the day, a shelter through the night.

Nesbit’s lines are a patriotic celebration of the U.S. flag as a shared civic emblem—“your” and “my” flag—meant to unify people across regions (“your land and my land”) and even across distance (“half a world away”). The poem dwells on the flag’s colors, assigning each a moral register: red becomes sacrifice (“blood-red”), white becomes purity and idealism (“soul-white”), and blue becomes fidelity (“true-blue”), while the stars signify rightful guidance. Calling it a “guidon” (a military standard) underscores martial associations, yet the closing image—“a shelter through the night”—casts the flag as protection and continuity in times of danger or uncertainty.