Page images
PDF
EPUB

5

he answer him who would array state against state, interest against interest, and party against party, careless of the continuance of that unity of government which constitutes us one people?

Gentlemen, the political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it now enjoys, it has acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We 10 have, while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest.

But dismemberment strikes at the very being which pre15 serves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all power of regaining lost, or acquiring new, possessions. It would leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but 20 without limbs, or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness.

Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from 25 the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust

our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder 30 Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley.

All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall real 35 again the well proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful architecture

which unites national sovereignty with state rights, individual security, and public prosperity ?

No, gentlemen, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum, and the Parthenon, they 5 will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw. the edifice of constitutional 10 American liberty.

But, gentlemen, let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that gracious Being who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of His hand. Let us trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the people, and to the efficacy 15 of, religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of Heaven which expels all other fear, and that regard to duty which transcends all other regard, may influence public men and private citizens, and lead our country still 20 onward in her happy career.

Full of these gratifying anticipations and hopes, let us look forward to the end of that century which is now commenced. A hundred years hence, other disciples of Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sin25 cere admiration than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do themselves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue summits of his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, 30 and on whose banks he rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely may they see, as we now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the Capitol; and then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country!

1

2

CI. THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.

BRYANT.

HERE are old trees. tall oaks and gnarled pines.
That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground
Was never trenched by spade, and flowers spring up
Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet
To linger here, among the flitting birds

And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and winds
That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass,
A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set

With pale blue berries. In these peaceful shades-
Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old-

My thoughts go up the long, dim path of years,
Back to the earliest days of liberty.

O Freedom, thou art not, as poets dream,

A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses, gushing from the

cap

With which the Roman master crowned his slave
When he took off the gyves.
A bearded man,

Armed to the teeth, art thou;

one mailéd hand

Grasps the broad shield, and on the sword; thy brow,
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred

With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs

Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee;
They could not quench the life thou hast from Heaven.
Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep,

And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires,

Have forged thy chain; yet while he deems thee bound,

The links are shivered, and the prison walls
Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth,
As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And shoutest to the nations, who return

Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors]

3 Thy birthright was not given by human hands;
Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields,
While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him,
To tend the quiet flock, and watch the stars,
And teach the reed to utter simple airs.
Thou, by his side, amid the tangled wood,
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf,
His only foes; and thou with him didst draw
The earliest furrows on the mountain-side,
Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself,
Thy enemy, although of reverend look,
Hoary with many years, and far obeyed,
Is later born than thou; and as he meets
The grave defiance of thine elder eye,
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.

4 Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years, But he shall fade into a feebler age;

5

Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares,
And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap
His withered hands, and from their ambush call
His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send
Quaint maskers, forms of fair and gallant mien,
To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words
To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth,
Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread,
That grow to fetters, or bind down thy arms

With chains concealed in chaplets.

O, not yet

Mayst thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by
Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom, close thy lids
If slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps,
And thou must watch and combat till the day
Of the new earth and heaven. But wouldst thou rest
Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men,

These old and friendly solitudes invite

Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees
Were young upon the unviolated earth,
And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new,
Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

[Buena Vista is a hamlet in Mexico where the Mexican army, under General Santa Anna, was defeated by the Americans, under General Taylor, February 22 and 23, 1847. La Angostura is about a mile and a half distant. La Puebla, (pwa'blä, or poo-a'bla,) is the second city of Mexico.]

away,

SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward fai
O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array,
Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they near?
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear.

"Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls;
Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls!
Who is losing? who is winning? "Over hill and over plain,
I see but smoke of cannon, clouding through the mountain rain."

[ocr errors]

Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look Ximena, look once more : "Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before, Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, foot and horse, Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course."

Look forth once more Ximena! "Ah! the smoke has rolled away; And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks of gray. Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop of Minon* wheels; There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon at their heels.

"Jesu, pity! how it thickens! now retreat and now advance! Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance! Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and foot together fall; Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern ball."

* Minon, (pronounced min-yon,) was a Mexican general.

« PreviousContinue »