Their pilot in the blast,
O'er untraveled seas to roam,
Yet lives the blood of England in our veins ! And shall we not proclaim That blood of honest fame Which no tyranny can tame By its chains?
While the language free and bold Which the Bard of Avon sung, In which our Milton told
How the vault of heaven rung When Satan, blasted, fell with his host; While this, with reverence meet, Ten thousand echoes greet, From rock to rock repeat
Round our coast;
While the manners, while the arts, That mold a nation's soul, Still cling around our hearts, — Between let Ocean roll,
Our joint communion breaking with the sun : Yet still from either beach
The voice of blood shall reach,
More audible than speech,
"We are One."
SONG OF MARION'S MEN.
OUR band is few, but true and tried, Our leader frank and bold; The British soldier trembles When Marion's name is told. Our fortress is the good greenwood, Our tent the cypress-tree; We know the forest round us,
As seamen know the sea;
We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands Within the dark morass.
Woe to the English soldiery That little dread us near! On them shall light at midnight A strange and sudden fear; When, waking to their tents on fire, They grasp their arms in vain, And they who stand to face us Are beat to earth again; And they who fly in terror deem A mighty host behind,
And hear the tramp of thousands Upon the hollow wind.
Then sweet the hour that brings release From danger and from toil;
Cannon-shot;
When the files
Of the isles,
LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
From the smoky night encampment, bore the On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
banner of the rampant Unicorn,
And grummer, grummer, grummer rolled the
roll of the drummer,
Through the morn!
Then with eyes to the front all, And with guns horizontal,
Stood our sires; And the balls whistled deadly, And in streams flashing redly Blazed the fires;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
Then he said, "Good night!" and with muffled | As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, In their night-encampment on the hill, Wrapped in silence so deep and still That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread, The watchful night-wind, as it went Creeping along from tent to tent, And seeming to whisper, "All is well!" A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread Of the lonely belfry and the dead ; For suddenly all his thoughts are bent On a shadowy something far away, Where the river widens to meet the bay, A line of black that bends and floats On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride, On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. Now he patted his horse's side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near, Then, impetuous, stamped the earth, And turned and tightened his saddle-girth; But mostly he watched with eager search The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
Lonely and spectral and somber and still. And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet: That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; And under the alders, that skirt its edge, Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
THE AMERICAN FLAG.
WHEN Freedom, from her mountain height, Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there! She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure, celestial white With streakings of the morning light; Then, from his mansion in the sun, She called her eagle-bearer down, And gave into his mighty hand The symbol of her chosen land!
Majestic monarch of the cloud!
Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest trumping loud, And see the lightning lances driven,
When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, Child of the Sun! to thee 't is given
To guard the banner of the free, To hover in the sulphur smoke, To ward away the battle-stroke, And bid its blendings shine afar, Like rainbows on the cloud of war, The harbingers of victory!
Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly, The sign of hope and triumph high! When speaks the signal-trumpet tone, And the long line comes gleaming on, Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet, Has dimmed the glistening bayonet, Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn To where thy sky-born glories burn, And, as his springing steps advance, Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon-mouthings loud Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud, And gory sabers rise and fall Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall, Then shall thy meteor glances glow,
And cowering foes shall shrink beneath Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.
Flag of the seas! on ocean wave Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave; When death, careering on the gale, Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, And frighted waves rush wildly back Before the broadside's reeling rack, Each dying wanderer of the sea Shall look at once to heaven and thee, And smile to see thy splendors fly In triumph o'er his closing eye.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home, By angel hands to valor given! Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven. Forever float that standard sheet !
Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us? JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.
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