This is his mission, and his sole vocation. To hear of this, the savage round him presses. How sweetly falls the beautiful oration Which bids them bear the marvellous revelation Of Christian peace through all their wildernesses! Not to defraud them of their broad possessions "We meet," he said, "upon the open highway Of broad good will, and honest faith and duty. Let love fraternal brighten every by-way, And peace inviolate be thy way as my way, Till all the forest blossoms with new beauty." So spake their friend, and they revered his teaching. O thou, like noble Penn, who truth adorest, A priest at her great shrine in Freedom's temple, While o'er this gift in thoughtful mood thou porest, Point to the faithful children of the forest, And bid the nations learn from their example. The Alliance. HERE is an oaken relic from a bark That speaks of olden scenes and ocean mystery,— - An anchor from the Revolution ark, Dropt to the present through the twilight dark, Linking the troubled periods of our history. It may be that the sapling of this wood, Crown'd on the coast with vines inviting inland Was swaying to the sea-wind's fitful mood, Learning the rocking motion of the flood, When roving Norsemen stood agaze at Vinland. Or did it feel the westward-sweeping gale- Where'er it grew, the woodman found the oak, Those were the days wherein we flung defiance We ask'd for friendship, France gave her compliance; In honor of the noble-hearted Frenchmen. Then France was generous France: her well-earned fame Shed round the world a lustre of pure glory. No Italy breathed curses on her name, No Mexico stood pointing at her shame With feeble fingers, desperate and gory. The royal vessel sought her future realm,— The ocean cormorants fled before her path. Full oft her desolating vengeance hath, In the great tempest of her iron wrath, Hers was the enviable pride to bear The unselfish hero's well-beloved exemplar, O Gratitude, forget not the ovations Due to a noble country's nobler scion. Old Europe's waters bore her graceful keel, Though she a while the doubtful Landais bore, And when the war was o'er, she laid aside There have been doubtful Landais' on our deck,- Didst save the flag-ship of the world from wreck, And still thou rul'st this stormy deck of state, With all your sea-worn councillors in communion, And when the Southern buccaneer at last If that no insolent gauntlet lies before us, Her deck made musical with Freedom's chorus. The Piece of Halliard from the Flag of the Cumberland. THIS simple cord, by unknown fingers spun, E'er saw upon the storied tide of Tiber. A shred from off the halliards of our hope, The trembling traitor on his well-earn'd scaffold? He should have seen, methinks, the dance of death, With hell-born charm and chant are brewing treason. Fierce maledictions, breathed with desperate might By trodden nations, longing to be freemen, Shall fall upon them with the withering blight Of leprous pestilence that walks at night, Till their own hearts shall curse their reigning demon. The Attack. IN Hampton Roads, the airs of March were bland, A sudden wonder seized on land and bay, Seeking with steady course his ocean wallow. And still it came, and largen'd on the sight,— Should turn to iron in the mid-Atlantic. Then ship and fortress gazed with anxious stare, The shot rebounded, no impression making. Then roar'd a broadside:-though directed well, From off the sounding armor of the giant! |