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POEMS OF PATRIOTISM AND FREEDOM.

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To all their heavenly Colors Tue Dr. Hackening frost or crimson duw, And God love is as we love thee, Thrice holy Flower of Liberty! Then hail the banner of the feel, The starry Flower of Liberty !

CHILD MEMORIAL

LIBRARY

Olion Wendell Homes

POEMS OF PATRIOTISM AND FREEDOM.

BREATHES THERE THE MAN BREATHES there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

MY COUNTRY.

THERE is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside,
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons imparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth :
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air.
In every clime, the magnet of his soul,
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole ;
For in this land of Heaven's peculiar race,
The heritage of nature's noblest grace,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest,
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend.
Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife,
Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of life:

In the clear heaven of her delightful eye,
An angel-guard of love and graces lie;
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.
"Where shall that land, that spot of earth be
found?"

Art thou a man? a patriot ? — look around;
O, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy home!

Man, through all ages of revolving time, Unchanging man, in every varying clime, Deems his own land of every land the pride, Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside; His home the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blessed! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

WILLIAM COLLINS.

THE BRAVE AT HOME.

I.

THE maid who binds her warrior's sash
With smile that well her pain dissembles,
The while beneath her drooping lash
One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles,

Though Heaven alone records the tear,
And Fame shall never know her story,
Her heart has shed a drop as dear

As e'er bedewed the field of glory!

II.

The wife who girds her husband's sword,
Mid little ones who weep or wonder,
And bravely speaks the cheering word,

What though her heart be rent asunder,
Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear

The bolts of death around him rattle, Hath shed as sacred blood as e'er

Was poured upon the field of battle!

III.

The mother who conceals her grief

While to her breast her son she presses, Then breathes a few brave words and brief, Kissing the patriot brow she blesses, With no one but her secret God

To know the pain that weighs upon her,
Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod

Received on Freedom's field of honor!
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

THE DEATH OF LEONIDAS.

A host glared on the hill; a host glared by the bay; But the Greeks rushed onward still, like leopards in their play.

The air was all a yell, and the earth was all a flame, Where the Spartan's bloody steel on the silken turbans came;

And still the Greek rushed on where the fiery torrent rolled,

Till like a rising sun shone Xerxes' tent of gold.

They found a royal feast, his midnight banquet,
there;

And the treasures of the East lay beneath the
Doric spear.

Then sat to the repast the bravest of the brave!
That feast must be their last, that spot must be
their grave.

Up rose the glorious rank, to Greece one cup poured high,

Then hand in hand they drank, "To immortality!"

Fear on King Xerxes fell, when, like spirits from the tomb,

With shout and trumpet knell, he saw the warriors come.

But down swept all his power, with chariot and with charge;

a storm was on the Down poured the arrows' shower, till sank the Spartan targe.

IT was the wild midnight, -
sky;
The lightning gave its light, and the thunder
echoed by.

The torrent swept the glen, the ocean lashed the
shore;

Then rose the Spartan men, to make their bed in gore!

Swift from the deluged ground three hundred took the shield;

Then, in silence, gathered round the leader of the field!

All up the mountain's side, all down the woody vale,

All by the rolling tide waved the Persian banners pale.

And foremost from the pass, among the slumbering band,

Sprang King Leonidas, like the lightning's living brand.

Then double darkness fell, and the forest ceased

its moan;

But there came a clash of steel, and a distant dy-
ing groan.

Anon, a trumpet blew, and a fiery sheet burst high,
That o'er the midnight threw a blood-red canopy.

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