Wreaths, and dance, and poet-numbers,
Flout them! we must work to-day!

Fear not! spurn the worldling's laughter;
Thine ambition-trample thou!
Thou shalt find a long Hereafter,
To be more than tempts thee now.

On! let all the soul within you,
For the truth's sake, go abroad!
Strike! let every nerve and sinew
Tell on ages-tell for God!

A. C. Cox.

115. TO 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 from 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!

Flag of the free heart's only 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.

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high!
When speaks the signal trumpet's tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on:
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,

J. R. DRAKE.- -OLIVER W. HOLMES.

Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy meteor glories burn;
And as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance!
And when the cannon's mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall,

Like shoots of flame on midnight pall !-
There shall thy victor glances glow,
And cowering foes shall fall beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death!

Flag of the seas! on ocean's wave,
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave,
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the swelling 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.

J. R. DRAKE

116. OLD IRONSIDES.

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high;
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky ;

Beneath it rung the battle shout,

And burst the cannon's roar ;

The meteor of the ocean air

Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck,- once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,—

385

No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;—
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh! better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her

grave: Nail to the mast her holy flag,

Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the god of storms,-
The lightning and the gale!

OLIVER W BOLKA

117. THE PILGRIMS.

How slow yon tiny vessel ploughs the main !
Amid the heavy billows now she seems
A toiling atom-then from wave to wave
Leaps madly, by the tempest lashed-or reels,
Half wrecked, through gulfs profound.

Moons wax and wine,
But still that lonely traveller treads the deep.
I see an ice-bound coast, towards which she steers
With such a tardy movement, that it seems
Stern winter's hand hath turned her keel to stone,
And sealed his victory on her slippery shrouds.
They land—they land!-not like the Genoese,
With glittering sword and gaudy train, and eye
Kindling with golden fancies. Forth they come
From their long prison-hardy forms, that brave
The world's unkindness-men of hoary hair,
And virgins of firm heart, and matrons grave,
Who hush the wailing infant with a glance.
Bleak Nature's desolation wraps them round,
Eternal forests, and unyielding earth,

And savage men, who through the thickets peer
With vengeful arrow.
What could lure their steps
To this drear desert? Ask of him who left
His father's home to roam through Haran's wilds,
Distrusting not the Guide who called him forth,

MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.-GEORGE D. PRENTICE. 387

Nor doubting, though a stranger, that his seed
Should be as ocean's sands.

And can ye deem it strange

That from their planting such a branch should bloom
As nations envy? Would a germ, embalmed
With prayer's pure tear-drops, strike no deeper root
Than that which mad ambition's hand doth strew
Upon the winds, to reap the winds again?
Hid by its veil of waters from the hand

Of greedy Europe, their bold vine spread forth
In giant strength.

Its early clusters, crushed
In England's wine-press, gave the tyrant host
A draught of deadly wine. Oh, ye who boast
In
your free veins the blood of sires like these,
Lose not their lineaments! Should Mammon cling
Too close around your heart, or wealth beget
That bloated luxury which eats the core
From manly virtue, or the tempting world
Make faint the Christian purpose in your soul,
Turn ye to Plymouth's beach-and on that rock
Kneel in their foot-prints, and renew the vow
They breathed to God.

MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY

118. TIME.

REMORSELESS Time!

Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe !-What power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt

His iron heart to pity? On, still on,

He presses, and forever. The proud bird,

The condor of the Andes, that can soar

Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,

And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain crag,—but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinions. Revolutions sweep
O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast

Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,
Glitter a while in their eternal depths,

And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away
To darkle in the trackless void; yet, Time,
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not,

Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.

GEORGE D. PRENTICE

119. THE YANKEE SHIPS.

OUR Yankee ships! in fleet career,
They linger not behind,

Where gallant sails from other lands
Court favoring tide and wind.
With banners on the breeze, they leap
As gayly o'er the foam

As stately barks from prouder seas,
That long have learned to roam.

The Indian wave, with luring smiles,
Swept round them bright to-day;
And havens of Atlantic isles

Are opening on their way;

Ere yet these evening shadows close,
Or this frail song is o'er,

Full many a straining mast will rise
To greet a foreign shore.

High up the lashing northern deep,

Where glimmering watch-lights beam,