Aye, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod!
They have left unstained what there they found-
Freedom to worship God!
Ex. CCI.-LYCEUM SPEECH OF MR. ORATOR CLIMAX.
MR. PRESIDENT,-Happiness is like a crow perched upon the neighboring top of a far distant mountain, which some fisherman vainly strives, to no purpose, to ensnare. He looks at the crow, Mr. President,-and-Mr. President, the crow looks at him; and, sir, they both look at each other. But the moment he attempts to reproach him, he banishes away like the schismatic taints of the rainbow, the cause of which, it was the astonishing and perspiring genius of a Newton, who first deplored and enveloped the cause of it. Can not the poor man, sir, precipitate into all the beauties of nature, from the loftiest mounting up to the most humblest valley, as well as the man prepossessed of indigence? Yes, sir; while trilling transports crown his view, and rosy hours allure his sanguinary youth, he can raise his mind up to the laws of nature, incompressible as they are, while viewing the lawless storm that kindleth up the tremenjious roaring thunder, and fireth up the dark and rapid lightnings, and causeth it to fly through the intensity of space, that belches forth those awful and sublime meteors, and roll-abolly-aliases, through the unfathomable regions of fiery hemispheres. Sometimes, sir, seated in some lovely retreat, beneath the shadowy shades of an umbrageous tree, at whose venal foot flows some limping stagnant stream, he gathers around him his wife and the rest of his orphan children. He there takes a retrospective view upon the diagram of futurity, and casts his eye like a flashing meteor forward into the past. Seated in their midst, aggravated and exhaled by the dignity and independence coincident with honorable poverty, his countenance irrigated with an intense glow of self deficiency and excommunicated knowledge, he quietly turns to instruct his little assemblage. He there endeavors to distil into their young youthful minds, useless lessons to guard their juvenile youths against vice and immortality. There, on a clear sunny evening, when the silvery moon is shining forth in all her indulgence and ubiquity,
he teaches the first sediments of gastronomy, by pointing out to them the bear, the lion, and many other fixed invisible consternations, which are continually involving upon their axletrees, through the blue cerulean fundamus above. From this vast ethereal he dives with them to the very bottom of the unfathomable oceans, bringing up from thence liquid treasures of earth and air. He then courses with them on the imaginable wing of fancy through the boundless regions of unimaginable either, until, swelling into impalpable immensity, he is for ever lost in the infinite radiation of his own overwhelming genius.
Ex. CCII.-THE PEN AND PRESS.
YOUNG GENIUS walked out by the mountain and streams,
Entranced by the power of his own pleasant dreams,
Till the silent-the wayward-the wandering thing
Found a plume that had fallen from a passing bird's wing;
Exulting and proud, like a boy at his play,
He bore the new prize to his dwelling away,
He gazed for a while on its beauties, and then
He cut it, and shaped it, and called it—a PEN.
But its magical use he discovered not yet,
Till he dipped its bright lips in a fountain of jet;
And Oh! what a glorious thing it became,
For it spoke to the world in a language of flame;
While its master wrote on like a being inspired,
Till the hearts of the millions were melted or fired;-
It came as a boon and a blessing to men,
The peaceful-the pure-the victorious PEN!
Young Genius went forth on his rambles once more,
The vast sunless caverns of earth to explore!
He searched the rude rock, and with rapture he found
A substance unknown, which he brought from the ground.
He fused it with fire, and rejoiced in the change,
As he molded the ore into characters strange,
Till his thoughts and his efforts were crowned with success;
For an engine uprose, and he called it-the PRESS.
The Pen and the Press, blest alliance! combined
To soften the heart and enlighten the mind;
For that to the treasures of knowledge gave birth,
And this sent them forth to the ends of the earth;
Their battles for truth were triumphant, indeed,
And the rod of the tyrant was snapped like a reed;
They were made to exalt us-to teach us to bless
Those invincible brothers-the PEN AND THE PRESS!
Ex. CCIII.-THE GRAY FOREST EAGLE.
WITH storm-daring pinion, and sun-gazing eye,
The Gray Forest Eagle is king of the sky!
Oh! little he loves the green valley of flowers,
Where sunshine and song cheer the bright summer hours,
But the dark, gloomy gorge, where down plunges the foam
Of the fierce, rocky torrent, he claims as his home;
There he blends his keen shriek with the roar of the flood,
And the many-voiced sounds of the blast-smitten wood.
A fitful red glaring, a low, rumbling jar,
Proclaim the storm-demon yet raging afar r;
The black cloud strides upward, the lightning more red,
And the roll of the thunder, more deep and more dread:
The Gray Forest Eagle, where, where has he sped?
Does he shrink to his eyrie, and shiver with dread?
Does the glare blind his eyes? Has the terrible blast
On the wing of the sky-king a fear-fetter cast?
O, no, the brave Eagle! he thinks not of fright;
The wrath of the tempest but rouses delight;
To the flash of the lightning his eye casts a gleam,
To the shriek of the wild blast he echoes his scream,
And with front like a warrior that speeds to the fray,
And a clapping of pinions, he 's up and away!
Away, O away, soars the fearless and free!
What recks he the sky's strife ?-its monarch is he!
The lightning darts round him,―undaunted his sight;
The blast sweeps against him,-unwavering his flight;
High upward, still upward he wheels, till his form
Is lost in the dark scowling gloom of the storm.
The tempest glides o'er with its terrible train,
And the splendor of sunshine is glowing again;
And full on the form of the tempest in flight,
The rainbow's magnificence gladdens the sight!
The Gray Forest Eagle! O, where is he now,
While the sky wears the smile of its God on its brow?
There's a dark, floating spot by yon cloud's pearly wreath,
With the speed of the arrow 'tis shooting beneath;
Down, nearer and nearer, it draws to the gaze,-
Now over the rainbow,—now blent with its blaze;—
'Tis the Eagle, the Gray Forest Eagle!—once more
He sweeps to his eyrie, his journey is o'er!
Time whirls round his circle, his years roll away,
But the Gray Forest Eagle minds little his sway;
The child spurns its buds for youth's thorn-hidden bloom,
Seeks manhood's bright phantoms, finds age and a tomb;
But the Eagle's eye dims not, his wing is unbowed,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud.
An emblem of freedom, stern, haughty, and high,
Is the Gray Forest Eagle, that king of the sky!
When his shadows steal black o'er the empires of kings,
Deep terror,-deep, heart-shaking terror, he brings;
Where wicked oppression is armed for the weak,
There rustles his pinion, there echoes his shriek;
His eye flames with vengeance, he sweeps on his way,.
And his talons are bathed in the blood of his prey.
O, that Eagle of Freedom! when cloud upon cloud
Swathed the sky of my own native land with a shroud,
When lightnings gleamed fiercely, and thunder-bolts rung,
How proud to the tempest those pinions were flung!
Though the wild blast of battle rushed fierce through the air
With darkness and dread, still the Eagle was there;
Unquailing, still speeding, his swift flight was on,
Till the rainbow of Peace crowned the victory won.
O, that Eagle of Freedom! age dims not his eye,
He has seen earth's mortality spring, bloom, and die!
He has seen the strong nations rise, flourish, and fall,
He mocks at time's changes, he triumphs o'er all;
He has seen our own land with forests o'erspread,-
He sees it with sunshine and joy on its head;
And his presence will bless this his own chosen clime,
Till the Archangel's fiat is set upon Time.
Ex. CCIV.-GINEVRA.
If ever you should come to Modena,
(Where, among other relics you may see
Fassoni's bucket, but 'tis not the true one,)
Stop at a palace near the Reggio-gate,
Dwelt in, of old, by one of the Orsini.
Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace,
And rich in fountains, statues, cypresses,
Will long detain you ;-but, before you go,
Enter the house,-forget it not, I pray you,
And look awhile upon a picture there.
'Tis of a lady in her earliest youth,-
The last of that illustrious family;
Done by Zampieri,-but by whom I care not.
He who observes it,- -ere he passes on,
Gazes his fill, and comes and comes again,
That he may call it up, when far away.
She sits inclining forward as to speak,
Her lips half open, and her finger up,
As though she said "Beware!" her vest of gold
Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to foot,—
An emerald-stone in every golden clasp;
And, on her brow, fairer than alabaster,
So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth,
The overflowings of an innocent heart,-
It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,—
Like some wild melody!
Over a moldering heir-loom, its companion,
An oaken chest, half eaten by the worms,
But richly carved by Antony of Trent,
With Scripture-stories from the life of Christ;
A chest that came from Venice, and had held
The ducal robes of some old ancestor,-
That by the way,—it may be true or false;—
But do n't forget the picture; and you will not,
When you have heard the tale they told me there.
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