Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
A friendship that like love is warm;
A love like friendship, steady.
The bird let loose in Eastern skies,
Returning fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam;
But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.
Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are!
From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins,
That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty's war,
Be wasted for tyrants, or stagnate in chains.
Farewell, farewell to thee, Araby's daughter!
Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea.
We wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce in all minds a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and the parting day linger and play on its summit!
War, war is still the cry,--"war even to the knife!"
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy.
I wantoned with thy breakers,
. . . . .
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane,--as I do here.
Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother's, when she feels
For the first time her first-born's breath!
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke!
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm!
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet song, and dance, and wine!
And thou art terrible!--the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know or dream or fear
Of agony are thine.
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.
Lo where the stage, the poor, degraded stage,
Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine,
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
They sought a faith's pure shrine.
No gilded dome swells from the lowly roof to catch the morning or evening beam; but the love and gratitude of united America settle upon it in one eternal sunshine. From beneath that humble roof went forth the intrepid and unselfish warrior, the magistrate who knew no glory but his country's good; to that he returned, happiest when his work was done. There he lived in noble simplicity, there he died in glory and peace. While it stands, the latest generations of the grateful children of America will make this pilgrimage to it as to a shrine; and when it shall fall, if fall it must, the memory and the name of Washington shall shed an eternal glory on the spot.
Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,
Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?
Dance and Provençal song and sunburnt mirth!
Oh for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene!
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth.
She is not fair to outward view
As many maidens be;
Her loveliness I never knew
Until she smiled on me:
Oh! then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light.
Those that have wealth must be watchful and wary,
Power, alas! naught but misery brings!
Ben Battle was a soldier bold,
And used to war's alarms;
But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
So he laid down his arms.
No sun--no moon--no morn--no noon,
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day,
No warmth--no cheerfulness--no healthful ease,
No road, no street, no t' other side the way,
No comfortable feel in any member--
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!
The courage of New England was the "courage of Conscience." It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself.
I remember, I remember
How my childhood fleeted by,--
The mirth of its December
And the warmth of its July.
Warm lights are on the sleepy uplands waning
Beneath dark clouds along the horizon rolled,
Till the slant sunbeams through the fringes raining
Bathe all the hills in melancholy gold.
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.