100 CHOICE SELECTIONS. No. 3. E PLURIBUS UNUM. Though many and bright are the stars that appear And the stripes that are swelling in majesty there, Their light is unsullied as those in the sky, 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 at the midnight of war, On the fields where our glory was won 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, And they stopped not to number their foe. 17* Q* 9 From where our green mountain-tops blend with the sky, To the waves where the balmy Hesperides lic, They conquered, and, dying, bequeathed to our calo 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, 'Neath the blood on the slippery deck. The oppressed of the earth to that standard shall fly, And the exile shall feel 'tis his own native sky, Where its stars shall wave over his head : And these stars shall increase till the fullness of time Its millions of cycles have run, Till the world shall have welcomed their mission sublime, And the nations of earth shall be one. Though the old Alleghany may tower to heaven, The links of our destiny cannot be riven While the truth of those words shall abide. 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, George W. Cutter. THE BURNING PRAIRIE. The prairie stretched as smooth as a floor, And pulling her apron over her feet. His face was wrinkled but not old, And his shirt sleeves back to the elbow rolled, And near in the grass with toes upturned, A dog with his head betwixt his paws, Now and then snapping his tar black jaws And near was the cow-pen, made of rails, In the open door an ox-yoke lay, To keep the little one, at her play On the floor, from falling out; While she swept the hearth with a turkey wing, And filled her tea-kettle at the spring. The little girl on her father's knee, Had said her lesson through; When a wind came over the prairie land, The watch dog whined, the cattle lowed The air grew gray as if it snowed, "There will be a storm, no doubt," So to himself the settler said; But, father, why is the sky so red?" The little girl slid off his knee, "Good wife," he cried, "come out and see, |