Stand by the flag though death-shots round it rattle,
And underneath its waving folds have met,
In all the dread array of sanguine battle,
The quivering lance and glittering bayonet!
Stand by the flag, all doubt and treason scorning!
Believe with courage firm, and faith sublime,
That it will float, until the eternal morning
Pales in its glories all the lights of Time!

OUR COUNTRY.

THOMAS SMITH GRIMKÉ.

WE cannot honor our Country with too deep a reverence; we cannot love her with an affection too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy of purpose or a faithfulness of zeal too steadfast and ardent. And what is our country? It is not the East, with her hills and her valleys, with her countless sails and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with her thousand villages and her harvest-home, with her frontiers of the lake and the ocean. It is not the West, with her forest-sea and her inland isles; with her luxuriant expanses, clothed in the verdant corn; with her beautiful Ohio and her verdant Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich plantations of the rustling cane, and in the golden robes of the rice-field. What are these but the sister families of one greater, better, holier family, OUR COUNTRY!

THE DEAD COMRADE.

RICHARD WATSON GILDER.

66

At the burial of Grant, a bugler stood forth and sounded taps."

COME, soldiers, arouse ye!
Another has gone;

Let us bury our comrade,
His battles are done.
His sun it is set;

He was true, he was brave,
He feared not the grave;
There is naught to regret.

Bring music and banners

And wreaths for his bier,—
No fault for the fighter
That death conquered here.

Bring him home ne'er to rove,
Bear him home to his rest,
And over his breast

Fold the flag of his love!

Great Captain of Battles,
We leave him with thee!
What was wrong, O forgive it:
His spirit make free!

Sound taps and away!
Out lights, and to bed!
Farewell, soldier dead!
Farewell for a day!

HEROES.

JOHN B. GOUGH.

COUNT me over the chosen heroes of this earth, and I will show you men that stood alone-ay, alone, while those they toiled, and labored, and agonized for, hurled at them contumely, scorn and contempt. They stood alone; they looked into the future calmly and with faith; they saw the golden beam inclining to the side of perfect justice; and they fought on amidst the storm of persecution. In Great Britain they tell me when I go to see such a prison: "There is such a dungeon in which such a one was confined." "Here, among the ruins of an old castle, we will show you where such a one had his ears cut off, and where another was murdered." Then they will show me monuments towering up to the heavens: "There is a monument to such a one; there is a monument to another." And what do I find? That the one generation persecuted and howled at these men, crying, "Crucify them! crucify them!" and dancing around the blazing fagots that consumed them; and the next generation busied itself in gathering up the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes and depositing them in the golden urn of a nation's history!

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

JOHN BRIGHT.

WHETHER the Union will be restored, I know not and I predict not. But this I think I know — that

in a few years, a very few years, the twenty millions of freemen in the North will be thirty millions or even fifty millions; a population equal to or exceeding that of this kingdom. When that time comes, I pray that it may not be said amongst them, that in the dark hour of their country's trials, England, the land of their fathers, looked on with icy coldness, and saw unmoved the perils and calamities of their children. As for me, I have but this to say: I am but one in this audience, and but one in the citizenship of this country; but if all other tongues are silent, mine shall speak for that policy which gives hope to the bondsmen of the South, and which tends to generous thoughts and generous words and generous deeds between the two great nations who speak the English language, and from their origin are alike entitled to the English name.

ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

FOURSCORE and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that the nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last, full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth!

LIBERTY.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

HIGH walls and huge the body may confine,
And iron gates obstruct the prisoner's gaze,
And massive bolts may baffle his design,

And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways;
But scorns the immortal mind such base control;
No chains can bind it, and no cell enclose.
Swifter than light it flies from pole to pole,

And in a flash from earth to heaven it goes.