Page images
PDF
EPUB

Here Wolfe him-10
Louisbourg gren-
He wrapped his

cursing, gesticulating. The order was given to charge. Then over the field rose the British cheer, mixed with the fierce yell of the Highland slogan. Some of the corps pushed forward with the bayonet; some advanced firing. The clansmen drew their broadswords and dashed on, keen and swift as bloodhounds. At the English right, though the attacking column was broken to pieces, a fire was still kept up, chiefly, it seems, by sharpshooters from the bushes and cornfields, where they had lain for an hour or more. self led the charge, at the head of the adiers. A shot shattered his wrist. handkerchief about it and kept on. Another shot struck him, and he still advanced, when a third lodged in his breast. He staggered, and sat on the ground. Lieu-15 tenant Brown of the grenadiers, one Henderson, a volunteer in the same company, and a private soldier, aided by an officer of artillery who ran to join them, carried him in their arms to the rear. He begged them to lay him down. They did so, and asked if he would have a 20 surgeon. "There's no need," he answered; "it's all over with me." A moment after, one of them cried out, 'They run; see how they run !” "Who run?" Wolfe demanded, like a man roused from sleep. "The enemy, sir. They give way everywhere." "Go, one of you, to 25 Colonel Burton," returned the dying man; "tell him to march Webb's regiment down to Charles River, to cut off their retreat from the bridge." Then, turning on his side, he murmured, "Now, God be praised, I will die in peace!" and in a few moments his gallant soul 30 had fled.

[ocr errors]

Montcalm, still on horseback, was borne with the tide of fugitives towards the town. As he approached the walls a shot passed through his body. He kept his

seat; two soldiers supported him, one on each side, and led his horse through the St. Louis gate. On the open space within, among the excited crowd, were several women, drawn, no doubt, by eagerness to know the result of the fight. One of them recognized him, saw the s streaming blood, and shrieked, "O mon Dieu! mon Dieu! le Marquis est tué !" "It's nothing, it's nothing," replied the death-stricken man; "don't be troubled for me, my good friends.”

5

LXXXIII.

A DAY IN JUNE.

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.'

AND what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;

Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,

And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;

The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;

The cowslip startles in meadows green,

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;

10

15

20

25

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest:
In the nice ear of Nature, which song is the best?

Now is the high tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;

No matter how barren the past may have been,
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear
That dandelions are blossoming near,

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky,

That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack;

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing-
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,

5

10

15

20

25

30

Everything is upward striving;

'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue:
'Tis the natural way of living.

Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
The soul partakes the season's youth,

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

5

10

LXXXIV.

A HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.

BY RICHARD O'GORMAN.'

You have all read the Declaration of Independence. A hundred years ago it was a new revelation, startling with new terror kings on their thrones, and bidding 15 serfs, in their poor huts, arise and take heart, and look up, with new hope of deliverance. It asserted that all men, kings and peasants, master and servant, rich and poor, were born equal, with equal rights, inheritors of equal claim to protection from the law; that govern-20 ments derived their just powers, not from conquest or force, but from the consent of the governed, and existed only for their protection and to make them happy. These were the truths eternal, but long unspoken-truths that few dared to utter, which Providence ordained 25 should be revealed here in America, to be the political

creed of the peoples all over the earth. Like a trumpet blast blown in the night, it pealed through the dark abodes of misery, and aroused men to thought and hope and action.

And that trumpet blast still is pealing and will peal, still summons whatever of manhood remains in mankind to assert itself. Still, at that sound, the knees of tyrants will be loosened with fear, and the hopes of freemen will rise, and their hearts beat faster and higher as long as this earth hangs poised in air, and men live 10 upon it whose souls are alive with memories of the past.

The Declaration of American Independence was a declaration of war with Great Britain, war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt. There were fearful odds against the Colonies when they threw down the gage 15 of battle. On one side was England-strong in the consciousness of wealth and power, strong in the prestige of sovereignty, fully armed and equipped for war, insolent, haughty, scorning even to entertain the idea of possible check or defeat. On the other side, the Thir-20 teen Colonies, stretching, for the most part, along the seaboard, vulnerable at a hundred points, and open to attack by sea and land, without army, without navy, without money or ammunition or material of war, having for troops only crowds of undisciplined citizens, who 25 had left for a while plow and anvil and hurried to the front with what arms they could lay hands on to fight the veterans of King George, skilled in their terrible trade by long service in European wars.

5

On the second of July, 1776, the Continental Congress 30 was in session in Philadelphia. There were about fortynine delegates present. That day was a day of gloom. The air was dark and heavy with ill news: Ill news from the North-Montgomery had fallen at Quebec,

« PreviousContinue »