For love's electric thrill Still kept the starry flag; The hot blood throbbing through the veins, "We strike for freedom surely now; In heaven's great name the damning wrong shall bow!" "She lives!" the freeman cried; From mountains old and grand; From peak, and dome, and spire, The flag of love and peace, And glory's quenchless fire. O toiling millions on the Old World's shore! When sainted heroes spurned the tyrants tread; A rapturous birth of Freedom out of woe; Wm. Oland Bourne, abridged. THE GONFALON OF VENICE. The flag of Venice, which was torn, and divided among the soldiers in 1849, was in 1961 reunited, and presented by a deputation of Venetian patriots to Victor Emanuel. The Queenly City was again by tyrant feet polluted ; The stately lion of St. Mark was crowned again with shame; The Austrian in our ducal halls his hireling hosts recruited, And taunted with his grinning guns our ancient pride and fame! Oppression's judges in our courts proclaimed our laws illegal, And plunged us from starvation into slavery that was worse; While from our captured citadel the great two-headed eagle Flew scornfully, and flapped his wings above us like a curse; We tore into a thousand shreds the great Venetian banner, And every soldier took an oath upon the shred he bore,. To wear it safely on his heart, till God's own time and man ner Should come, to wake our Fatherland to Liberty once more. We swore upon the tattered flag, no morsel to surrender, We took the solemn oath with tears, and each embraced his brother, Then parted on our several ways, to exile or to death, Or daily martyrdom at home;—yet, true to one another, To wear our ragged Gonfalon until our latest breath! Who died, resigned the sacred charge unto his sworn succes sor; Who wandered, left all other things, but kept this pledge alone; We bore it far in other lands: and many a proud oppressor We smote to earth, lamenting that we could not smite our own. King Victor, by the grace of God and by the nation's choosing! We hail in you the morning star that tells our dawning day; And joyfully we can unroll-all faded with the using- 'Tis seamed and old; but it has felt a thousand warm hearts beating; "Tis writ upon in blood and tears with prayers and hopes of man ; And where the hosts of Liberty the battle-shock are meeting, The Gonfalon of Venice shall be always in the van! With the White Cross of Savoia here we mark it as a token; And beneath its folds to victory we'll steadfastly march on; But we charge you by our weary years of patient hope un broken, To plant once more in Venice our glorious Gonfalon! R. W. R. THE AMERICAN STRUGGLE. WEEP, weep, Columbia, from thy banner fair The thundering cannon echoes o'er the deep, While martial columns tread, and blood-stained banners wave, Throughout the glorious land thy sons would die to save. Thy homes are desolate, for traitorous hands, Upon the head she pillowed on her breast, No more the father grasp with joy the boy's strong hand That left the pruning hook and plough for war's red brand. Where vultures cry, and loathsome adders creep Rolls his ensanguined waters to the sea. On hills all battle-crowned with smoke, and red Which gained a patriot's name and passed away, And not in vain have passed; no more the slaves shall cry, For white-winged liberty, serene, stands smiling by. England, thy mighty mother o'er the main, Her transatlantic child, in war or peace be thine On the sea islands, 'mid the snowy bloom And night, the driver's cry; through tangled forests drear Wipe slavery's foul blot from thy escutcheon now, And win a conqueror's wreath to grace thy youthful brow. Lead on the embattled hosts; before thy face And blessed peace from sea to sea hold sway. His wounded feet and dust-clogged wings shall rise Emblem of thy proud state; then doubt and danger past, Mary Alice Sewell. THE GIFT OF GREEN CORN. You shall hear how Hiawatha On the fourth day of his fasting Full of shadowy dreams and visions, And he saw a youth approaching I, the friend of man, Mondamin, You shall gain what you have prayed for. |