Page images
PDF
EPUB

And once again a fire of hell
Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars.

And Irish Nora's eyes are dim,
For a singer, dumb and gory!
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of "Annie Laurie."

Ah! soldiers, to your honored rest
Your truth and valor bearing;

The bravest are the tenderest-
The loving are the daring!

PROGRESS OF FREEDOM.-E. D. BAKER-1860.

THE Government which our fathers founded will not be broken up by us. No threats of disunion, no hard names, no fear of outside feuds shall drive us from the broad, luminous path of right and duty. In the presence of God-looking up reverently to Him while we say we Republicans declare that Freedom, in this great Government, is the rule, and Slavery but the exception. Slavery is the exception-marked, guarded, hedged in and protected; there let it remain. Let it claim its just rights, and possess them-if we are to be accessory to all its vices and errorsif even public opinion is not to be allowed to visit its dusky cheek too roughly-let that be so; but beyond what is nominated in the bond, we will not and dare not go. We live in a day of light; we live in an advancing generation. We live in the presence of the whole world. We are "like a city set on a hill which cannot be hid." The prayers and tears and hopes and sighs of all good men are with us, of us, for us, and for me, I dare not and will not be false to that position. Here, then, years, many years long gone, I took my stand by Freedom, and where in my earliest youth my feet were planted, there my manhood and my age shall march. And for one, I am not ashamed of Freedom. I know her power. I rejoice in her majesty. I walk beneath her

THE CONSTITUTION.

97

banner. I glory in her strength. I have seen Freedom in history, again and again; with mine own eyes I have watched her again and again struck down on a hundred chosen fields of battle.

I have seen her friends fly from her; I have seen her foes gather around her; I have seen them bind her to the stake; I have seen them give her ashes to the winds-regathering them again that they might scatter them yet more widely, but when her foes turned to exult, I have seen her again meet them face to face, resplendent in complete steel, and brandishing in her strong right hand a flaming sword, red with insufferable light.

And I take courage. The people gather around her. The Genius of America will at last lead her sons to Freedom.

THE CONSTITUTION.-DANIEL WEBSTER.

NEVER did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now devolve upon us, for the preservation of this Constitution, and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution for ages to come.

We have a great, popular, constitutional Government, guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the people. No monarchical throne presses these States together. They live and stand upon a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever.

In all its history it has been beneficent. It has trodden down no man's liberty, it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism. Its youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This Republic now extends, with a vast breadth, across the whole continent. The two great seas of the world wash the one and the

other shore. We realize on a mighty scale the beautiful description of the ornamental edging of the bucklers of Achilles—

"Now the broad shield complete, the artist crowned

With his last hand, and poured the ocean round.

In living silver seemed the waves to roll,

And beat the buckler's verge and bound the whole."

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.-H. W. LONGFELLOW.

LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend,-"If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm."

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack-door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely, and spectral, and somber, and still.

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:

That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;

And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

It was twelve by the village clock,

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.

It was one by the village clock,

When he rode into Lexington.

He saw the gilded weathercock

Swim in the moonlight as he passed,

And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,

As if they already stood aghast

At the bloody work they would look upon.

You know the rest. In the books you have read

How the British regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm,-
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,-

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore !
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,

And the midnight-message of Paul Revere

THE HOUR OF DEATH.-FELICIA HEMANS.

LEAVES have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath,
And stars to set—but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

Day is for mortal care,

Eve for glad meetings round the joyous hearth,

Night for the dreams of sleep, the voice of prayerBut all for thee, thou mightiest of the earth.

The banquet hath its hour,

Its feverish hour of mirth, and song, and wine;
There comes a day for grief's o'erwhelming power,
A time for softer tears-but all are thine.

Youth and the opening rose

May look like things too glorious for decay,

And smile at thee-but thou art not of those That wait the ripened bloom to seize their prey.

We know when moons shall wane,

When summer birds from far shall cross the sea,

When autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grainBut who shall teach us when to look for thee?

Is it when spring's first gale

Comes forth to whisper where the violets lie?
Is it when roses in our path grow pale?
They have one season-all are ours to die!

« PreviousContinue »