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
He comes, or to control their eagle pinions,
But to pledge friendship and its sweet relations,
Truth and forbearance, gentleness and patience,
To all the people of their wild dominions.
"We meet," he said, "upon the open highway Of broad good will, and honest faith and duty. Let love fraternal brighten every by-way,
inviolate be thy way as my way,
Till all the forest blossoms with new beauty."
So spake their friend, and they revered his teaching.
They said, "We will be true to thee and thine."
And through long seasons toward their future reaching,
No act was shown their plighted faith impeaching,
Marring the compact, loving and divine.
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.
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-
The wind that still of God and freedom hymneth-
Which landward drove the saintly hero's sail,
Until the sea-toss'd pilgrims, worn and pale,
Were landed on the icy rock of Plymouth?
Where'er it grew, the woodman found the oak,
It knew the teamster and the hewer's trestle,
It felt the hammers, snuff'd the pitchy smoke,
Then seaward, like a steed from stall, it broke,
While Salisbury hail'd her favourite warrior vessel.
Those were the days wherein we flung defiance
Unto a tyrant monarch and his henchmen.
We ask'd for friendship, France gave her compliance;
And hence we call'd our vessel the Alliance,
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,—
Royal, because her parent oak was regal;
And sceptred Science shaped her prow and helm,
And crowned Courage, naught could overwhelm,
Breathed in the bosom of that fierce sea-eagle.
The ocean cormorants fled before her path.
Her wing, descried afar, was fearful omen;
Full oft her desolating vengeance hath,
In the great tempest of her iron wrath,
Sent a wild shudder through the hearts of foemen.
Hers was the enviable pride to bear
The unselfish hero's well-beloved exemplar,
A Paladin whose heart was full of prayer
For freedom's Palestine-his soul was there..
Forever honor'd be the good knight-templar.
O Gratitude, forget not the ovations
Due to a noble country's nobler scion.
Let Lafayette, before the gaze of nations,
Stand canonized amidst our constellations,
Belted with starry fame, like brave Orion.
Old Europe's waters bore her graceful keel,
And heard the rolling of her threatening thunder;
She taught the insolent buccaneer to kneel
And sue for quarter,-taught their homes to feel
A mingled sense of due respect and wonder.
Though she a while the doubtful Landais bore,
It was her glorious privilege to carry
The pennant of Paul Jones, the Commodore,
The pride and terror of the sea and shore,
And his, the hardy and intrepid Barry.
And when the war was o'er, she laid aside
The latest vestige of the past commotion,
And to the winds of Commerce, far and wide,
Shook out her sails for other realms untried,
And brought home treasure from the farthest ocean.
There have been doubtful Landais' on our deck,-
The deck of state,-that wellnigh brought disaster!
But thou, obedient to a nation's beck,
Didst save the flag-ship of the world from wreck,
O noble patriot and unswerving master!
And still thou rul'st this stormy deck of state,
With all your sea-worn councillors in communion,
Still, with your mann'd and well-tried guns in wait,
Stand by your charge, O Captain, calm and great,
Beneath the steadfast banner of the Union!
And when the Southern buccaneer at last
Shall strike her colors, saying, "It is over,"
Lash on the prize and raise her jury-mast,
Stop all her leaks, make all her rigging fast,
And bring her homeward, a repentant rover.
And when anon our battle-flag is furl'd,
If that no insolent gauntlet lies before us,
By dastard in the hour of danger hurl'd,
Then let our ship of commerce sweep the world,
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,
Holds history in every slender fibre,—
Telling more baseness in one action done,
And of more heroism, than the sun
E'er saw upon the storied tide of Tiber.
A shred from off the halliards of our hope,
Our battle-banner, seldom lower'd or baffled!
Did he who twined the fellow to that rope
Behold, in his imaginary scope,
The trembling traitor on his well-earn'd scaffold?
He should have seen, methinks, the dance of death,
The traitors' dance in this rebellious season,
While the gaunt wizards on the Southern heath,
Like the foul hags encounter'd by Macbeth,
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.
IN Hampton Roads, the airs of March were bland,
Peace on the deck and in the fortress sleeping,
Till in the look-out of the Cumberland,
The sailor, with his well-poised glass in hand,
Descried the iron island downward creeping.
A sudden wonder seized on land and bay,
And Tumult with her train was there to follow,
For still the stranger kept its seaward way,
Looking a great leviathan blowing spray,
Seeking with steady course his ocean wallow.
And still it came, and largen'd on the sight,—
A floating monster,-ugly and gigantic,—
In shape a wave, with long and shelving height,
As if a mighty billow, heaved at night,
Should turn to iron in the mid-Atlantic.
Then ship and fortress gazed with anxious stare,
Until the Cumberland's cannon, silence breaking,
Thunder'd its guardian challenge, "Who comes there?"
But, like a rock-flung echo in the air,
The shot rebounded, no impression making.
Then roar'd a broadside:-though directed well,
On, like a nightmare, moved the shape defiant!
The tempest of our pounding shot and shell,
Crumbled to harmless nothing, thickly fell
From off the sounding armor of the giant!
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