Page images
PDF
EPUB

shall be gathered round it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it is connected, there shall rise from every youthful breast the ejaculation, "Thank God, I—I also-am an American!"

NOT YET.-WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

Он, country, marvel of the earth!

Oh, realm to sudden greatness grown!
The age that gloried in thy birth,
Shall it behold thee overthrown?
Shall traitors lay that greatness low?
No! Land of Hope and Blessing, No!

And we who wear thy glorious name,

Shall we, like cravens, stand apart,
When those whom thou hast trusted, aim
The death-blow at thy generous heart?
Forth goes the battle-cry, and lo!
Hosts rise in harness, shouting, No!

And they who founded, in our land,

The power that rules from sea to sea,
Bled they in vain, or vainly planned
To leave their country great and free?
Their sleeping ashes, from below,
Send up the thrilling murmur, No!

Our humming marts, our iron ways,

Our wind-tossed woods on mountain crest,

The hoarse Atlantic, with his bays,

The calm, broad ocean of the West,

And Mississippi's torrent flow,

And loud Niagara, answer, No!

For now, behold, the Arm that gave
The victory in our fathers' day,
Strong, as of old, to guard and save-

That mighty Arm which none can stay→

On clouds above, and fields below,
Writes, in men's sight, the answer, No!

THE EVE OF ELECTION.

17

LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.-E. D. BAKER.

THE liberty of the Press is the highest safeguard to all free government. Ours could not exist without it. It is like a great, exulting and abounding river. It is fed by the dews of heaven, which distill their sweetest drops to form it. It gushes from the rill, as it breaks from the deep caverns of the earth. It is augmented by a thousand affluents, that dash from the mountain top, to separate again into a thousand bounteous and irrigating streams around. On its broad bosom it bears a thousand barks. There genius spreads its purpling sail. There poetry dips its silver oar. There art, invention, discovery, science, morality, religion, may safely and securely float. It wanders through every land. It is a genial, cordial source of thought and inspiration, wherever it touches, whatever it surrounds. Upon its borders, there grows every flower of grace, and every fruit of truth. Sir, I am not here to deny that that river sometimes oversteps its bounds. I am not here to deny that that stream sometimes becomes a dangerous torrent, and destroys towns and cities upon its bank. But I am here to say that, without it, civilization, humanity, government, all that makes society itself, would disappear, and the world would return to its ancient barbarism. We will not risk these consequences, even for slavery; we will not risk these consequences even for union; we will not risk these consequences to avoid that civil war with which you threaten us;-that war which you announce as deadly, and which you declare to be inevitable.

THE EVE OF ELECTION.-JOHN G. WHITTIER.

FROM gold to gray our mild sweet day

Of Indian Summer fades too soon;

But tenderly above the sea

Hangs, white and calm, the Hunter's moon.

Along the street the shadows meet

Of Destiny, whose hands conceal

The moulds of fate that shape the State,
And make or mar the common weal.

TRRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

Around I see the powers that be;
I stand by Empire's primal springs;
And princes meet in every street,

And hear the tread of uncrowned kings!

Not lightly fall beyond recall

The written scrolls a breath can float;
The crowning fact, the kingliest act
Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!

For pearls that gem a diadem

The diver in the deep sea dies;
The regal right we boast to-night
Is ours through costlier sacrifice :

The blood of Vane, his prison pain
Who traced the path the Pilgrim trod,
And hers whose faith drew strength from death,
And prayed her Russell up to God!

Our hearts grow cold, we lightly hold

A right which brave men died to gain; The stake, the cord, the ax, the sword, Grim nurses at its birth of pain.

The shadow rend, and o'er us bend,

O martyrs, with your crowns and palms,— Breathe through these throngs your battle-songs, Your scaffold prayers and dungeon psalms!

Look from the sky, like God's great eye,
Thou solemn moon, with searching beam;

Till in the sight of thy pure light

Our mean self-seekings meaner seem.

Shame from our hearts unworthy arts,
The fraud designed, the purpose dark;
And smite away the hands we lay
Profanely on the sacred ark.

To party claims, and private aims,
Reveal that august face of Truth,
Whereto are given the age of heaven,
The beauty of immortal youth.

PANEGYRIC ON CALIFORNIA.

So shall our voice of sovereign choice
Swell the deep bass of duty done,
And strike the key of time to be,

When God and man shall speak as one!

19

PANEGYRIC ON CALIFORNIA.-THOS. STARR KING, 1863.

SUPPOSE we were called to name on all the globe, to-day, the community of 400,000 persons most favorably placed, so far as domain and prosperity and prospects are concerned. Let a man turn the globe with compasses in his hand, and hold them suspended, and deliberate as long as he may. I defy him to fix the point at any other place than Sacramento--right here at Agricultural Hall-so that the sweep shall include the 400,000 souls within the jurisdiction of this Society. What other portion of the earth held by one organization of less than half a million will compare in privilege, resources and hopes with the portion of this young, beloved Benjamin of American States, whose autumnsack is now stuffed with grain, while the mouth of it contains a cup of gold? A line on the Atlantic coast, representing the length of our State, would run from Boston, below Chesapeake Bay, below Cape Hatteras, below the batteries of Gilmore on Cummings Point, to the harbor of Port Royal. And nearly the whole of the area with this vast water front is one symmetrical domain, by reason of the mountains that uprear their five hundred miles of jagged whiteness in its background; the rivers that flow from the northward and the southward, fed from those snowy springs, to unite in the centre of the State; and the bay that receives their volume, rivaling in its conformation the Bay of Naples. Where else has the Almighty delivered to half a million of people such a line of eternal snow looking down upon such opulent plains? Where else such a fellowship of temperate and tropic climates? Where else such rainless summers, which turn drouths into harvests? Where else gold in the rocks, and, bending over the mills that crush them, peaches that mock the apples of gold in the garden of the Hesperides? Where else such sweeps of wheat, such armies of noble cattle on a thousand hills, such bloom

of vineyards; and beneath all such variety of mineral wealth, which only centuries to come can tap and drain? Where else has the Almighty connected such social blessings with material good-freedom, intelligence, schools, multiplying churches and loyalty deliberate-principled, unconditional, invincible loyalty to the Government and the policy, the freest, the noblest, the worthiest beneath the sun? I do not say this, gentlemen, in boasting. It is only the honest generalization of the map of California and of the facts which your exhibition presents to our eyes this week. In privilege of position, and in regard to resources and the future, the State of California, in the American Republic, is the most favored spot which this globe turns to the sun.

CALIFORNIA.-BAYARD TAYLOR.

O FAIR young land, the youngest, fairest, far,
Of which the world can boast,

Whose guardian planet, evening's silver star,
Illumes thy golden coast.

How art thou conquered, famed in all the pride
Of savage beauty still!

How brought, O panther of the splendid hide,
To know thy master's will?

No more thou sittest on thy tawny hills,

In indolent repose;

Or pour'st the crystal of a thousand rills

Down from thy house of snows.

But where the wild oats wrapped thy knees in gold

The plowman drove his share,

And where, through cañons deep, thy streams are rolled,
The miner's arm is bare!

Yet in thy lap, thus rudely rent and torn,

A nobler seed shall lie;

Mother of mighty men, thou shalt not mourn
Thy lost virginity!

« PreviousContinue »