Freedom calls you! Quick, be ready,—
Rouse ye in the name of God,—
Onward, onward, strong and steady,—
Dash to earth the oppressor's rod.
Freedom calls, ye brave!
Rise and spurn the name of slave.
II.
Grasp the sword!—its edge is keen,
Seize the gun!—its ball is true:
Sweep your land from tyrant clean,—
Haste, and scour it through and through!
Onward, onward! Freedom cries,
Rush to arms,—the tyrant flies.
III.
By the souls of patriots gone,
Wake,—arise,—your fetters break,
Kosciusko bids you on,—
Sobieski cries awake!
Rise, and front the despot czar,
Rise, and dare the unequal war.
IV.
Freedom calls you! Quick, be ready,—
Think of what your sires have been,
Onward, onward! strong and steady,
Drive the tyrant to his den.
On, and let the watchword be,
Country, home, and liberty!
JAMES G. PERCIVAL.
CHAPTER II.
SMOOTHNESS.
THE VILLAGE PREACHER.
I.
Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening's close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There, as I passed with careless steps and slow,
The mingled notes came softened from below;
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watchdog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind,—
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.
II.
Near yonder copse where once the garden smiled,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild,
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place.
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
III.
His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire and talked the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
IV.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all;
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt his new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.
V.
Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood. At his control
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down, the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whispered praise.
VI.
At church with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran;
E'en children followed, with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile.
VII.
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed;
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven:
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm;
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
TO THE DAISY.
I.
With little here to do or see
Of things that in the great world be,
Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee
For thou art worthy,
Thou unassuming Common-place
Of Nature, with that homely face,
And yet with something of a grace
Which Love makes for thee!
II.
Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit and play with similes,
Loose types of things through all degrees,
Thoughts of thy raising;
And many a fond and idle name
I give to thee, for praise or blame
As is the humour of the game,
While I am gazing.
III.
A nun demure, of lowly port;
Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court,
In thy simplicity the sport
Of all temptations;
A queen in crown of rubies drest;
A starveling in a scanty vest;
Are all, as seems to suit thee best,
Thy appellations.
IV.
A little Cyclops, with one eye
Staring to threaten and defy,
That thought comes next—and instantly
The freak is over,
The shape will vanish, and behold!
A silver shield with boss of gold
That spreads itself, some faery bold
In fight to cover.
V.
I see thee glittering from afar—
And then thou art a pretty star,
Not quite so fair as many are
In heaven above thee!
Yet like a star, with glittering crest,
Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest;—
May peace come never to his nest
Who shall reprove thee!
VI.
Sweet Flower! for by that name at last
When all my reveries are past
I call thee, and to that cleave fast,
Sweet silent Creature!
That breath'st with me in sun and air,
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature!
WILLIAM WOBDSWORTH.
PSALM XXIII.
1. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
2. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
3. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runueth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
EXTRACT FROM EULOGY ON WENDELL PHILLIPS.
1. Like other gently nurtured Boston boys, Phillips began the study of law; and, as it proceeded, doubtless the sirens sang to him, as to the noble youth of every country and time. If, musing over Coke and Blackstone, in the full consciousness of ample powers and of fortunate opportunities, he sometimes forecast the future, he doubtless saw himself succeeding Fisher Ames, and Harrison Gray Otis, and Daniel Webster, rising from the bar to the Legislature, from the Legislature to the Senate, from the Senate— who knew whither?—the idol of society, the applauded orator, the brilliant champion of the elegant repose and the cultivated conservatism of Massachusetts.
2. The delight of social ease, the refined enjoyment of taste in letters and art, opulent leisure, professional distinction, gratified ambition—all these came and whispered to the young student. And it is the force that can tranquilly put aside such blandishments with a smile, and accept alienation, outlawry, ignominy, and apparent defeat, if need be, no less than the courage which grapples with poverty and outward hardship and climbs over them to worldly prosperity, which is the test of the finest manhood. Only he who fully knows the worth of what he renounces gains the true blessing of renunciation.
3. When he first spoke at Faneuil Hall some of the most renowned American orators were still in their prime. Webster and Clay were in the Senate, Choate at the bar, Edward Everett upon the academic platform. From all these orators Phillips differed more than they differed from each other. Behind Webster, and Everett, and Clay there was always a great organized party or an entrenched conservatism of feeling and opinion. They spoke accepted views. They moved with masses of men, and were sure of the applause of party spirit, of political tradition, and of established institutions. Phillips stood alone.
4. With no party behind him and appealing against established order and acknowledged tradition, his speech was necessarily a popular appeal for a strange and unwelcome cause, and the condition of its success was that it should both charm and rouse the hearer, while, under cover of the fascination, the orator unfolded his argument and urged his plea. This condition the genius of the orator instinctively perceived, and it determined the character of his discourse.
5. He faced his audience with a tranquil mien and a beaming aspect that was never dimmed. He spoke, and in the measured cadence of his quiet voice there was intense feeling, but no declamation, no passionate appeal, no superficial and feigned emotion. It was simple colloquy—a gentleman conversing. Unconsciously and surely, the ear and heart were charmed. How was it done? Ah! how did Mozart do it, how Raphael? The secret of the rose's sweetness, of the bird's ecstacy, of the sunset's glory—that is the secret of genius and of eloquence.
6. What was heard, what was seen, was the form of noble manhood, the courteous and self-possessed tone, the flow of modulated speech, sparkling with matchless richness of illustration, with apt illusion, and happy anecdote, and historic parallel, with wit and pitiless invective, with melodious pathos, with stinging satire, with crackling epigram and limpid humor, like the bright ripples that play around the sure and steady prow of the resistless ship. The divine energy of his conviction utterly possessed him, and his
"Pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in his cheek, and so distinctly wrought
That one might almost say his body thought."
7. Phillips cherished profound faith in the people, and because he cherished it he never flattered the mob, nor hung upon its neck, nor pandered to its passion, nor suffered its foaming hate or its exulting enthusiasm to touch the calm poise of his regnant soul. He moved in solitary majesty, and if from his smooth speech a lightning flash of satire or of scorn struck a cherished lie, or an honored character, or a dogma of the party creed, and the crowd burst into a furious tempest of dissent, he beat it into silence with uncompromising iteration. If it tried to drown his voice, he turned to the reporters, and over the raging tumult calmly said, "Howl on, I speak to 30,000,000 here."
8. There was another power in his speech sharper than in the speech of any other American orator,—an unsparing invective. The abolition appeal was essentially iconoclastic, and the method of a reformer at close quarters with a mighty system of wrong cannot be measured by the standards of cool and polite debate. Phillips did not shrink from the sternest denunciation, or ridicule or scorn, of those who seemed to him recreant to freedom and humanity. The idols of a purely conventional virtue he delighted to shatter, because no public enemy seemed to him more deadly than the American who made moral cowardice respectable.
9. He knew that his ruthless words closed to him homes of friendship and hearts of sympathy. He saw the amazement, he heard the condemnation; but, like the great apostle preaching Christ, he knew only humanity and humanity crucified. Tongue of the dumb, eyes of the blind, feet of the impotent, his voice alone, among the voices that were everywhere heard and heeded, was sent by God to challenge every word, or look, or deed that seemed to him possibly to palliate oppression or to comfort the oppressor.
10. I am not here to declare that the judgment of Wendell Phillips was always sound, nor his estimate of men always just, nor his policy always approved by the event. I am not here to eulogize the mortal, but the immortal.
11. The plain house in which he lived—severely plain, because the welfare of the suffering and the slave were preferred to book, and picture, and every fair device of art; the house to which the north star led the trembling fugitive, and which the unfortunate and the friendless knew—the radiant figure passing swiftly through these streets, plain as the house from which it came, regal with, a royalty beyond that of kings—the ceaseless charity untold—the strong, sustaining heart—the sacred domestic affection that must not here be named—the eloquence which, like the song of Orpheus, will fade from living memory into a doubtful tale—the surrender of ambition, the consecration of a life hidden with God in sympathy with man—these, all these, will live among your immortal traditions, heroic even in your heroic story.
12. But not yours alone. As years go by, and only the large outlines of lofty American characters and careers remain, the wide republic will confess the benediction of a life like this, and gladly own that if with perfect faith, and hope assured, America would still stand and "bid the distant generations hail," the inspiration of her national life must be the sublime moral courage, the all-embracing humanity, the spotless integrity, the absolutely unselfish devotion of great powers to great public ends, which were the glory of Wendell Phillips.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
THE BROOK.
I.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
II.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges;
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
III.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
IV.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
V.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
VI.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.
VII.
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me as I travel,
With many a silvery water-break
Above the golden gravel.
VIII.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers,
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
IX.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.
X.
I murmur, under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses,
I linger by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses.
XI.
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
OLD AUNT MARY'S.
Wasn't it pleasant, O, brother mine,
In those old days of the lost sunshine
Of youth—when the Saturday's chores were through,
And the "Sunday's wood" in the kitchen, too,
And we went visiting, "me and you,"
Out to Old Aunt Mary's?
It all comes back so clear to-day!
Though I am as bald as you are gray—
Out by the barn-lot, and down the lane,
We patter along in the dust again,
As light as the tips of the drops of the rain,
Out to Old Aunt Mary's!
We cross the pasture, and through the wood
Where the old gray snag of the poplar stood,
Where the hammering "red-heads" hopped awry,
And the buzzard "raised" in the "clearing" sky,
And lolled and circled, as we went by
Out to Old Aunt Mary's.
And then in the dust of the road again;
And the teams we met, and the countrymen;
And the long highway, with sunshine spread
As thick as butter on country bread,
Our cares behind, and our hearts ahead
Out to Old Aunt Mary's.
Why, I see her now in the open door,
Where the little gourds grew up the sides and o'er
The clapboard roof!—And her face—ah, me!
Wasn't it good for a boy to see
Out to Old Aunt Mary's?
And, O, my brother, so far away,
This is to tell you she waits to-day
To welcome us:—Aunt Mary fell
Asleep this morning, whispering, "Tell
The boys to come!" And all is well
Out to Old Aunt Mary's.
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.
CHILD VERSE.
MY SHADOW.
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my
bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to
grow—
Not at all like proper children which is always very
slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber
ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of
him at all.
He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks
to me!
One morning very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me, and was fast asleep in
bed.
THE SWING.
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the country side.
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!
THE LAMPLIGHTER.
My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
It's time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the
street.
Now Tom would be a driver, and Maria go to sea,
And my papa's a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I'm to do,
O Leerie, I'll go round at night and light the lamps
with you!
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And Oh, before you hurry by with ladder and with light,
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night!
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
WAITING.
Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.
I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face,
Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.
What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it has sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.
The waters know their own, and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.
The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.
JOHN BURROUGHS.
CHAPTER III.
VOLUME.
THE REVENGE.
A BALLAD OF THE FLEET.
I.
At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnance, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from
far away:
"Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-
three!"
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "'Fore God I am
no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of
gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow
quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-
three?"
II.
Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know you are
no coward;
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.
I should count myself the coward if I left them, Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain."
III.
So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day,
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land
Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford in Devon,
And we laid them on the ballast down below;
For we brought them all aboard,
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not
left to Spain,
To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.
IV.
He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in
sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
"Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!
There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set."
And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good English
men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the
devil,
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet."
V.
Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a
hurrah, and so
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the
foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick
below;
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left
were seen,
And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane
between.
VI.
Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their
decks and laugh'd,
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little
craft
Running on and on, till delay'd
By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred
tons,
And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning
tiers of guns,
Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd.
VII.
And while now the great San Philip hung above us
like a cloud
Whence the thunderbolt will fall
Long and loud,
Four galleons drew away
From the Spanish fleet that day,
And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard
lay,
And the battle-thunder broke from them all.
VIII.
But anon the great San Philip, she bethought herself
and went
Having that within her womb that had left her ill
content;
And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us
hand to hand,
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and
musqueteers,
And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that
shakes his ears
When he leaps from the water to the land.
IX.
And the sun went down, and the stars came out far
over the summer sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and
the fifty-three.
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built
galleons came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-
thunder and flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with
her dead and her shame.
For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so
could fight us no more—
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world
before?
X.
For he said "Fight on! fight on!"
Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck;
And it chanced that, when half of the short summer
night was gone,
With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck,
But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly
dead,
And himself he was wounded again in the side and the
head,
And he said "Fight on! fight on!"
XI.
And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far
over the summer sea,
And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us
all in a ring;
But they dared not touch us again, for they fear'd that
we still could sting,
So they watch'd what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,
But in perilous plight were we,
Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,
And half of the rest of us maim'd for life
In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;
And the sick men down in the hold were most of them
stark and cold,
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder
was all of it spent;
And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride,
"We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
As may never be fought again!
We have won great glory, my men!
And a day less or more
At sea or ashore,
We die—does it matter when?
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her
in twain!
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of
Spain!"
XII.
And the gunner said "Ay, ay," but the seaman made
reply:
"We have children, we have wives,
And the Lord hath spared our lives.
We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let
us go;
We shall live to fight again and to strike another blow."
And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the
foe.
XIII.
And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore
him then,
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard
caught at last,
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign
grace;
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:
"I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man
and true;
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do:
With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die!"
And he fell upon their decks, and he died.
XIV.
And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant
and true,
And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap
That he dared her with one little ship and his English
few;
Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they
knew,
But they sank his body with honor down into the deep,
And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew,
And away she sail'd with her loss and long'd for her
own;
When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke
from sleep,
And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,
Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their
masts and their flags,
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd
navy of Spain,
And the little Revenge herself went down by the island
crags
To be lost evermore in the main.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
THE OCEAN.
I.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
II.
Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean—roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin—his control
Stops with the shore;—upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
III.
The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war,—
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
IV.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage,—what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts;—not so thou,
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play-
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow—
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
V.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving;—boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of Eternity—the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
VI.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sport was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers—they to me
Were a delight; and if thy freshening sea
Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear;
For I was, as it were, a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here.
LORD BYRON.
SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS AT CAPUA.
1. Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who for twelve long years has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad Empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three of all your company dare face me on the bloody sand, let them come on.
2. And yet I was not always thus,—a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men. My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our rustic meal.
3. One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I know not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars.
4. That very night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the war horse—the bleeding body of my father flung amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling! Today I killed a man in the arena; and, when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend! He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died;—the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph!
5. I told the praetor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body, to burn it on a funeral pile, and mourn over its ashes. Ay! upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of bleeding clay! And the praetor drew back as if I were pollution, and sternly said, "Let the carrion rot! There are no noble men but Romans."
6. And so, fellow gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs! O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Ay! thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe;—to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he shall pay thee back, until the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy life-blood lies curdled!
7. Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The strength of brass is in your toughened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and bet his sesterces upon your blood. Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he has tasted flesh; but to-morrow he shall break his fast upon yours,—and a dainty meal for him ye will be!
8. If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen, waiting for the butcher's knife! If ye are men, follow me! Strike down yon guard, gain the mountain passes, and then do bloody word, as did your sires at old Thermopylae! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound beneath his master's lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle.
REV. ELIJAH KELLOGG.
TELL TO HIS NATIVE MOUNTAINS.
I.
Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again!
I hold to you the hands you first beheld,
To show they still are free. Methinks I hear
A spirit in your echoes answer me,
And bid your tenant welcome home again!
II.
O sacred forms, how proud you look!
How high you lift your heads into the sky!
How huge you are! how mighty and how free!
How do you look, for all your bared brows,
More gorgeously majestical than kings
Whose loaded coronets exhaust the mine.
III.
Ye are the things that tower, that shine; whose smile
Makes glad—whose frown is terrible; whose forms,
Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear
Of awe divine; whose subject never kneels
In mockery, because it is your boast
To keep him free!
IV.
Ye guards of liberty,
I'm with you once again! I call to you
With all my voice! I hold my hands to you
To show they still are free. I rush to you
As though I could embrace you!
V.
The hour
Will soon be here. Oh, when will Liberty
Once more be here? Scaling yonder peak,
I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow,
O'er the abyss his broad-expanded wings
Lay calm and motionless upon the air
As if he floated there without their aid,
By the sole act of his unlorded will,
That buoyed him proudly up.
VI.
Instinctively
I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still
His airy circle, as in the delight
Of measuring the ample range beneath
And round about; absorbed, he heeded not
The death that threatened him. I could not shoot.
'Twas liberty. I turned my bow aside,
And let him soar away.
JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES.
BATTLE HYMN.
I.
Father of earth and heaven! I call thy name!
Round me the smoke and shout of battle roll;
My eyes are dazzled with the rustling flame;
Father, sustain an untried soldier's soul!
Or life or death, whatever be the goal
That crowns or closes round this struggling hour,
Thou knowest, if ever from my spirit stole
One deeper prayer,'twas that no cloud might lower
On my young fame! Oh, hear, God of eternal power!
II.
God! thou art merciful—the wintry storm,
The cloud that pours the thunder from its womb,
But show the sterner grandeur of thy form;
The lightnings glancing through the midnight
gloom,
To Faith's raised eye as calm, as lovely come,
As splendors of the autumnal evening star,
As roses shaken by the breeze's plume,
When like cool incense comes the dewy air,
And on the golden wave the sunset burns afar.
III.
God! thou art mighty!—at thy footstool bound,
Lie gazing to thee Chance, and Life, and Death;
Nor in the Angel-circle flaming round,
Nor in the million worlds that blaze beneath
Is one that can withstand thy wrath's hot breath—
Woe in thy frown—in thy smile, victory!
Hear my last prayer—I ask no mortal wreath;
Let but these eyes my rescued country see,
Then take my spirit, All-Omnipotent, to thee.
IV.
Now for the fight—now for the cannon-peal—
Forward—through blood and toil, and cloud and
fire!
Glorious the shout, the shock, the crash of steel,
The volley's roll, the rocket's blasting spire;
They shake—like broken waves their squares
retire,—
On, them, hussars!—now give them rein and heel;
Think of the orphaned child, the murdered sire:—
Earth cries for blood—in thunder on them wheel!
This hour to Europe's fate shall set the triumph seal.
KARL THEODORE KORNER.
SELF-RELIANCE.
1. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what THEY thought.
2. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
3. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
4. There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. 5. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without pre- established harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray.
6. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
7. Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the Eternal was stirring at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being.
8. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids pinched in a corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay under the Almighty effort, let us advance on Chaos and the Dark.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.
1. Adams and Jefferson, I have said, are no more. As human beings, indeed, they are no more. They are no more, as in 1776, bold and fearless advocates of independence; no more, as on subsequent periods, the head of the government; no more, as we have recently seen them, aged and venerable objects of admiration and regard. They are no more. They are dead.
2. But how little is there of the great and good which can die? To their country they yet live, and live forever. They live in all that perpetuates the remembrance of men on earth; in the recorded proofs of their own great actions, in the offspring of their intellect, in the deep engraved lines of public gratitude, and in the respect and homage of mankind. They live in their example; and they live, emphatically, and will live, in the influence which their lives and efforts, their principles and opinions, now exercise, and will continue to exercise, on the affairs of men, not only in their own country, but throughout the civilized world.
3. A superior and commanding human intellect, a truly great man,— when heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift,—is not a temporary flame, burning bright for awhile, and then expiring, giving place to returning darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that, when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night follows; but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the potent contact of its own spirit.
4. Bacon died; but the human understanding, roused by the torch of his miraculous mind to a perception of the true philosophy and the just mode of inquiring after truth, has kept on its course successfully and gloriously. Newton died; yet the courses of the spheres are still known, and they yet move on, in the orbits which he saw and described for them, in the infinity of space.
5. No two men now live—perhaps it may be doubted whether any two men have ever lived in one age,—who, more than those we now commemorate, have impressed their own sentiments, in regard to politics and government, on mankind; infused their own opinions more deeply into the opinions of others; or given a more lasting direction to the current of human thought. Their work doth not perish with them. The tree which they assisted to plant will flourish, although they water it and protect it no longer; for it has struck its roots deep; it has sent them to the very center; no storm, not of force to burst the orb, can overturn it; its branches spread wide; they stretch their protecting arms broader and broader, and its top is destined to reach the heavens.
6. We are not deceived. There is no delusion here. No age will come, in which the American Revolution will appear less than it is—one of the greatest events in human history. No age will come, in which in it will cease to be seen and felt, on either continent, that a mighty step, a great advance, not only in American affairs, but in human affairs, was made on the 4th of July, 1776. And no age will come, we trust, so ignorant, or so unjust, as not to see and acknowledge the efficient agency of these we now honor, in producing that momentous event.
DANIEL WEBSTER.
THE DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW.
I.
Banner of England, not for a season, O banner of
Britain, hast thou
Floated in conquering battle or flapt to the battle cry!
Never with mightier glory than when we had reared
thee on high,
Flying at top of the roofs in the ghastly siege at Lucknow—
Shot through the staff or the halyard, but ever we raised
thee anew,
And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.
II.
Frail were the works that defended the hold that we held with our lives— Women and children among us—God help them, our children and wives! Hold it we might—and for fifteen days or for twenty at most. "Never surrender, I charge you, but every man die at his post!" Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Lawrence the best of the brave; Cold were his brows when we kissed him—we laid him that night in his grave.
III.
"Every man die at his post!" and there hailed on our
houses and halls
Death from their rifle bullets, and death from their cannon
balls,
Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our slight
barricade,
Death while we stood with the musket, and death while
we stoopt to the spade,
Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, for
often there fell,
Striking the hospital wall, crashing through it, their
shot and their shell,
IV.
Death—for their spies were among us, their marksman
were told of our best,
So that the brute bullet broke through the brain that
could think for the rest;
Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would
rain at our feet—
Fire from ten thousand at once of the rebels that girdled
us round;
Death at the glimpse of a finger from over the breadth
of a street,
Death from the heights of the mosque and the palace—
and death in the ground!
V.
Mine? yes, a mine! Countermine! down, down! and
creep through the hole,
Keep the revolver in hand! You can hear him—the
murderous mole.
Quiet! ah! quiet—wait till the point of the pickaxe
be through!
Click with the pick, coming nearer and nearer again
than before—
Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is
no more;
And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England
blew.
VI.
Ay, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it chanced on a day, Soon as the blast of that underground thunder-clap echoed away, Dark through the smoke and the sulphur, like so many fiends in their hell— Cannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon yell— Fiercely on all the defences our myriad enemies fell.
VII.
What have they done? where is it? Out yonder.
Guard the Redan!
Storm at the Water-gate, storm at the Bailey-gate!
storm, and it ran
Surging and swaying all round us, as ocean on every
side
Plunges and heaves at a bank that is daily drowned by
the tide—
So many thousands that if they be bold enough, who
shall escape?
Kill or be killed, live or die, they shall know we are
soldiers and men.
VIII.
Ready! take aim at their leaders—their masses are
gapped with our grape—
Backward they reel like the wave, like the wave
flinging forward again,
Flying and foiled at the last by the handful they could
not subdue;
And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England
blew.
IX.
Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart
and in limb,
Strong with the strength of the race to command, to
obey, to endure,
Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung but
on him—
Still, could we watch at all points? We were every
day fewer and fewer.
X.
There was a whisper among us, but only a whisper
that passed—
"Children and wives—if the tigers leap into the folds
unawares,
Every man die at his post—and the foe may outlive
us at last,
Better to fall by the hands that they love, than to fall
into theirs."
XI.
Roar upon roar—in a moment two mines, by the enemy sprung, Clove into perilous chasms our walls and our poor palisades. Riflemen, true is your heart, but be sure that your hand be as true. Sharp is the fire of assault, better aimed are your flank fusilades; Twice do we hurl them to earth from the ladders to which they had clung, Twice from the ditch where they shelter we drive them with hand grenades—, And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.
XII.
Then on another wild morning another wild earthquake
out-tore
Clean from our lines of defence ten or twelve good
paces or more.
Riflemen, high on the roof, hidden there from the light
of the sun—
One has leapt up on the breach, crying out, "Follow
me, follow me!"
Mark him—he falls! then another, and him, too, and
down goes he.
XIII.
Had they been bold enough then, who can tell but that
the traitors had won?
Boardings, and raftings, and doors—an embrasure;
make way for the gun!
Now, double charge it with grape! It is charged, and
we fire, and they run.
Praise to our Indian brothers, and let the dark face
have his due.
Thanks to the kindly dark faces who fought with us,
faithful and few,
Fought with the bravest among us, and drove them,
and smote them, and slew—
That ever upon the topmost roof our banner in India
blew.
XIV.
Hark! cannonade! fusilade! is it true that was told
by the scout?
Outram and Havelock breaking their way through the
fell mutineers?
Surely, the pibroch of Europe is ringing again in our ears!
All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubilant shout;
Havelock's glorious Highlanders answer with conquering
cheers.
XV.
Forth from their holes and their hidings our women
and children come out,
Blessing the wholesome white faces of Havelock's good
fusileers,
Kissing the war-hardened hand of the Highlander wet
with their tears.
Dance to the pibroch! saved! we are saved! is it you?
is it you?
Saved by the valor of Havelock, saved by the blessing
of Heaven!
"Hold it for fifteen days!" we have held it for eighty-
seven!
And ever aloft on the palace roof the old banner of
England blew.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
SONNETS.
To one who has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven,—to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
Who is more happy, when, with heart's content,
Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair
Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair
And gentle tale of love and languishment?
Returning home at evening, with an ear
Catching the notes of Philomel,—an eye
Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career,
He mourns that day so soon has glided by:
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear
That falls through the clear ether silently.
J. KEATS.
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn,
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide.
Doth God exact day labor, light deny'd,
I fondly ask? but patience to prevent
That murmur soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
JOHN MILTON.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise;
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith;
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BBOWNING.
IS THERE, FOR HONEST POVERTY.
I.
Is there, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Our toils obscure, and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea-stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.
II.
What though on hamely fare we dine.
Wear hodden gray and a' that,
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man's a man, for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, and a' that;
The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that!
III.
Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a' that;
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
His riband, star, and a' that;
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at a' that!
IV.
A king can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Guid faith he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Their dignities, and a' that,
The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.
V.
Then let us pray that come it may—
As come it will for a' that—
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth
May bear the gree, and a' that;
For a' that, and a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.