But when evening has quitted her sheltering yew, Her dusky meshes o'er land and sea, How gently, O sleep, fall thy poppies on me! For I drink water, pure, cold, and bright, And my dreams are of Heaven the livelong night. So hurrah for thee, water! hurrah! hurrah ! Thou art silver and gold, thou art ribbon and star: E PLURIBUS UNUM. HOUGH many and bright are the stars that appear THOU In that flag by our country unfurl'd, And the stripes that are swelling in majesty there Like a rainbow adorning the world — Their light is unsullied as those in the sky, By a deed that our fathers have done, And they're linked in as true and as holy a tie, From the hour when those patriots fearlessly flung Ever true to themselves, to that motto they clung By the bayonet traced in the midnight of war, Oh! perish the heart or the hand that would mar Our motto of "Many in One." 'Mid the smoke of the conflict, the cannon's deep roar, How oft it has gathered renown! While those stars were reflected in rivers of gore, Where the cross and the lion went down; And though few were their lights in the gloom of that hour, Yet the hearts that were striking below Had God for their bulwark, and truth for their power, From where our green mountain-tops blend with the sky, To the waves where the balmy Hesperides lie, They conquered, and, dying, bequeathed to our care But that banner whose loveliness hallows the air, We are many in one, while there glitters a star And tyrants shall quail, 'mid their dungeons afar, It shall gleam o'er the sea, 'mid the bolts of the storm- And flame where our guns with their thunder grow warm, The oppress'd of the earth to that standard shall fly, And the exile shall feel 't is his own native sky, Where its stars shall wave over his head; And those stars shall increase till the fulness of time Its millions of cycles have run Till the world shall have welcomed their mission sublime, Though the old Allegheny may tower to heaven, And the Father of Waters divide, The links of our destiny cannot be riven While the truth of those words shall abide. Divide as we may in our own native land, To the rest of the world we are ONE. Then up with our flag! — let it stream on the air; They had hands that could strike-they had souls that could dare And their sons were not born to be slaves. Up, up with that banner!—where'er it may call, And a nation of freemen that moment shall fall, ARNOLD WINKELRIED. The noble voluntary death of the Switzer, Winkelried, is accurately described in the following verses. In the battle of Shempach, in the ourteenth century, this martyrpatriot, perceiving that there was no other means of breaking the heavy-armed lines of the Austrians than by gathering as many of their spears as he could grasp together, opened, by this means, a passage for his fellow-combatants, who, with hammers and hatchets, hewed down the mailed men-at-arms, and won the victory. AKE way for liberty!" he cried “MA Made way for liberty, and died! falany In arms the Austrian phalanx stood, Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke Marshalled once more at Freedom's call, They came to conquer or to fall. And now the work of life and death Hung on the passing of a breath; Yet, while the Austrians held their ground, And perish at their tyrants' feet. It must not be; this day, this hour, It did depend on one, indeed; Unmarked, he stood amid the throng, Till you might see, with sudden grace, Tell where the bolt would strike, and how. But 't was no sooner thought than done The field was in a moment won! Ten spears he swept within his grasp. "Make way for liberty!" he cried; Their keen points crossed from side to side; Swift to the breach his comrades fly - And through the Austrian phalanx dart, While, instantaneous as his fall, Thus Switzerland again was free- I NOBILITY OF LABOR. CALL upon those whom I address to stand up for the nobility of labor. It is Heaven's great ordinance for human improvement. Let not that great ordinance be broken down. What do I say? It is broken down; and it has been broken down, for ages. Let it, then, be built up again; here, if anywhere, on these shores of a new world-of a new civilization. But how, I may be asked, is it broken down? Do not men toil? it may be said. They do, indeed, toil; but they too generally do it because they must. Many submit to it as, in some sort, a degrading necessity; and they desire nothing so much on earth as to escape from it. They fulfil the great law of labor in the letter, but break it in the spirit; fulfil it with the muscle, but break it with the mind. To some field of labor, mental or manual, every idler should fasten, as a chosen and coveted theatre of improvement. But so is he not impelled to do, under the teachings of our imperfect civilization. On the contrary, he sits down, folds his hands, and blesses himself in his idleness. This way of thinking is the heritage of the absurd and unjust feudal system, under which serfs labored, and gentlemen spent their lives in fighting and feasting. It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done away. Ashamed to toil, art thou? Ashamed of thy dingy workshop and dusty laborfield; of thy hard hand, scarred with service more honorable than that of war; of thy soiled and weather-stained garments, on which mother nature has embroidered, midst sun and rain, midst fire and steam, her own heraldic honors? Ashamed of these tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity? It is treason to Nature - it is impiety to Heaven it is breaking Heaven's great ordinance. Toil, I repeat - toil, either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand, is the only true manhood, the only true nobility ! |