BOOK SECOND. RECENT SELECTIONS. POETRY. L CCLXXXVIII. OUR COUNTRY'S CALL. AY down the axe, fling by the spade: For arms like yours were fitter now; Our country calls; away! away! To where the blood-stream blots the green, Strike to defend the gentlest sway That Time in all his course has seen. See, from a thousand coverts see Spring the armed foes that haunt her track; They rush to smite her down, and we Ho! sturdy as the oaks ye cleave, And moved as soon to fear and flight, Men of the glade and forest! leave His serried ranks shall reel before And ye who breast the mountain storm By grassy steep or highland lake, Come, for the land ye love, to form A bulwark that no foe can break. And ye, whose homes are by her grand Have swelled them over bank and bourn, And ye who throng, beside the deep, On his long murmuring marge of sand, Few, few were they whose swords, of old, But we are many, we who hold The grim resolve to guard it well. That Might and Right move hand in hand, W. C. Bryant. CCLXXXIX. NOT YET. COUNTRY, marvel of the earth! O realm to sudden greatness grown! The age that gloried in thy birth, Shall it behold thee overthrown? Shall traitors lay that greatness low? No, Land of Hope and Blessing, No! And we who wear. thy glorious name, Forth goes the battle-cry, and lo! And they who founded, in our land, Knit they the gentle ties which long These sister States were proud to wear, And forged the kindly links so strong For idle hands in sport to tear For scornful hands aside to throw? No, by our fathers' memories, No! Our humming marts, our iron ways, Our wind-tossed woods on mountain crest, The hoarse Atlantic, with his bays, The calm, broad Ocean of the West, And Mississippi's torrent flow, And loud Niagara, answer, No! At last, at last, O Stars and Stripes! Out from our history its shame. Stand to your faith, America! Sad Europe listen to our call! Up to your manhood, Africa! That gracious flag floats over all. And when the hour seems dark with doom, Pure as its white the future see! G. W. Curtis. CCXCI. LEXINGTON — 1775. No maddening thirst for blood had they, No battle-joy was theirs who set Against the alien bayonet Their homespun breasts in that old day. Swift as the summons came they left They went where duty seemed to call, |