3 Thy birthright was not given by human hands; 4 Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years, But he shall fade into a feebler age; 5 Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares, With chains concealed in chaplets. O, not yet Mayst thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by These old and friendly solitudes invite Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees [Buena Vista is a hamlet in Mexico where the Mexican army, under General Santa Anna, was defeated by the Americans, under General Taylor, February 22 and 23, 1847. La Angostura is about a mile and a half distant. La Puebla, (pwā'blä, or poo-ā'blà,) is the second city of Mexico.] SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away, "Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls; Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look Ximena, look once more: "Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before, Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, foot and horse, Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course." Look forth once more Ximena! "Ah! the smoke has rolled away; And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks of gray. Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop of Minon* wheels; There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon at their heels. "Jesu, pity! how it thickens! now retreat and now advance! Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance! Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and foot together fall; Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern ball." *Minon, (pronounced min-yon,) was a Mexican general. Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on. "Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting; Blessed Mother, save my brain! "Oh my heart's love! oh my dear one! lay thy poor head on my knee; Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst thou hear me? Canst thou see? Oh, my husband, brave and gentle ! oh my Bernard, look once more On the blessed cross before thee! mercy! mercy! all is o'er." Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one down to rest; Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay, Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away; But, as tenderly before him, the lorn Ximena knelt, She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol belt. With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head; With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead; But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain, And she raised the cooling water to his parched lips again. Whispered low the dying soldier, prossed her hand, and faintly smiled, Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside her child? All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied; With her kiss upon his forchead, "Mother!" murmured he, and died "A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth, Look forth once more, Ximena! "Like a cloud before the wind Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool, gray shadows fall; Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all! Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled, In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold. But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued, Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and lacking food; Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung, And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue. Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours; Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers; From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air! [RUFUS CHOATE was born in Essex, Massachusetts, October 1, 1799, and died July 13, 1859. He was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1819, and adnitted to the bar in 1824. He practised his profession first at Danvers, then at Salem, and for the last twenty-five years of his life at Boston. He was chosen to the house of representatives in 1832, and served there a single term. He was a member of the senate from February, 1841, to March, 1845. He was a brilliant and cloquent advocate, with unrivalled power over a jury, a thoroughly instructed lawyer, and a scholar of wide range and various cultivation. His writings, consisting of lectures, addresses, and speeches, are distinguished by a combination of logical power and imaginative splendor. The following extract is from an oration delivered in Boston on the eightysecond anniversary of American Independence, July 5, 1858.] BUT now, by the side of this and all antagonisms, higher than they, stronger than they, there rises colossal the fine, sweet spirit of nationality, the nationality of America. See there the pillar of fire which God has kindled, and Gaze on Between lifted, and moved, for our hosts and our ages. that, worship that, worship the highest in that. that light and our eyes a cloud for a time may seem to gather; chariots, armed men on foot, the troops of kings, 5 may march on us, and our fears may make us for a moment turn from it; a sea may spread before us, and waves seem to hedge us up; dark idolatries may alienate some hearts for a season from that worship; revolt, rebellion, may break out in the camp, and the waters of our springs 10 may run bitter to the taste, and mock it; between us and that Canaan a great river may seem to be rolling; but beneath that high guidance our way is onward, ever onward. Those waters shall part, and stand on either hand in heaps; that idolatry shall repent; that rebellion shall 15 be crushed; that stream shall be sweetened; that overflowing river shall be passed on foot, dry-shod, in harvesttime; and from that promised land of flocks, fields, tents, mountains, coasts, and ships, from north and south, and east and west, there shall swell one cry yet, of victory, 20 peace, and thanksgiving! But we were seeking the nature of the spirit of nationality, and we pass in this inquiry from contrast to analysis. You may call it, in one aspect, a mode of contemplating the nation in its essence, and so far it is an intel25 lectual conception, and you may call it a feeling towards the nation thus contemplated, and so far it is an emotion. In the intellectual exercise it contemplates the nation as it is one, and as it is distinguished from all other nations, and in the emotional exercise it loves it, and is proud of 30 it as thus it is contemplated. This you may call its ultimate analysis. But how much more is included in it! How much flows from it! How cold and inadequate is such a description, if we leave it there! Think of it first as a state of consciousness, as a 35 spring of feeling, as a motive to exertion, as blessing your country, and as reacting on you. Think of it as it fills |