Each knew, ere night should fall again, The drums were beating the "tattoo,' A thousand swelling voices sang, "Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore," 'T was victory assured o'er death. They met the shock of fierce attack, Of frenzied charge, we know how well, For graves and scars and empty homes, Of that day's fierce encounter tell. Long years have come and gone since then: And still the words they sang come back, And freer power, is ours, to-day; MARY HANNAH KROUT. 33. TO THEE, O COUNTRY! WRITTEN by the author, now Mrs. J. B. KING, in her 15th year, and set to music by Julius Eichberg, and used by permission of Messrs. O. Ditson & Co. To thee, O country, great and free, Upon thy mighty, faithful heart For thee we daily work and strive, O God preserve our Fatherland! And let her happy kingdom stretch From north to southmost sea. ANNA PHILIPINE EICHBERG. Still starlight sheds the same pale beam And musing breasts might fondly dream For empires fall, and Freedom dies, May He whose glory gems the sky, RICHARD MONTGOMERY. 17. JOAN OF ARC'S FAREWELL TO HOME. THIS patriotic girl, at the age of eighteen, rescued her country, in the year 1429. FAREWELL, ye mountains, ye beloved glades, ye trees Who sang'st responsive to my simple strain, He who in glory did on Horeb's height "Thou in rude armor must thy limbs invest, "For when in fight the stoutest hearts despair, The Heavenly Spirit promised me a sign: Its iron filleth me with strength divine; I feel the courage of the cherubim. As with the rushing of a mighty wind SCHILLER. THE heroism of the Spartan patriot Leonidas, and the willing selfsacrifice of his little band of three hundred veterans at the Pass of Thermopylæ, along the northern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, B. C. 480, are among the most emphatic expressions of true patriotism to be found in human history. All the later struggles of Greece against Turkish oppression have equally aroused the sympathy of England and America. SHOUT for the mighty dead Who died along this shore, Who died within this mountain glen! For never nobler chieftain's head Was laid on valor's crimson bed, Nor ever prouder gore Sprang forth, than theirs who won the day Shout for the mighty men. Who on the Persian tents, Like lions from their midnight den, Bounded on the slumbering deer; Let loose from an immortal hand, But there are none to hear: Greece is a hopeless slave. No warrior makes the warrior's vow Upon thy sea-washed grave. The voice that should be raised by men GEORGE CROLY. |