To noble deeds their glorious fame
The patriot's bosom fires.

They braved the tempest and the flood,
They met the battle's fray,

They pledged their honor and their blood
On freedom's natal day.

Our country summons every son
To join the choral throng,

For freedom's battles fought and won
To raise the lofty song.

Loud swell the anthem's joyful sound
Within the sacred dome,-

And tell each nation far around

Here Freedom has her home.

EDWARD C. MARSHALL

65. WORK.

WORK is the sweet of earth's sad life;
Work is a hymn of praise,

That wings its flight o'er sounds of strife,
To the Ancient One of days.

Work yields thee peace from every foe,
A balm for every sorrow;

It soothes with joy thy thoughts of woe,
And cheers with hope thy morrow.

The Father's work, rejoicing came
The Saviour to perform;

To heal the sick, restore the lame,
And bless the souls who mourn.

Wouldst learn of faith, or joy or love?
By steadfast work thou❜lt know
The mysteries of heaven above,

Or of the earth below.

Work on! work on! ye sons of toil;
Your guerdon this shall be,-

While here ye sweat, and toil, and moil,

Ye win eternity!

EDWARD C. MARSHALL

PRAY, Mr. Dram-drinker, how do you do?
What in perdition's the matter with you?
How did you come by that bruise on the head?
Why are your eyes so infernally red?
Why do you mutter that infidel hymn?
Why do you tremble in every limb ?

Who has done this?-let the reason be shown,
And let the offender be pelted with stone.

And the Dram-drinker said, "If you listen to me, You shall hear what you hear, and see what you see. “I had a father;-the grave is his bed:

I had a mother;-she sleeps with the dead.
Truly I wept when they left me alone;

But I shed all my tears on their grave and their stone.
I planted a willow, I planted a yew,

And left them to sleep till the last trumpet blew.
Fortune was mine; I mounted her car-

Pleasure from virtue had beckoned me far.

Onward I went, like an avalanche, down,

And the sunshine of fortune was changed to a frown.
"Fortune was gone, and I took to my side
A young, and a lovely, and beautiful bride!
Her I entreated with coldness and scorn-
Tarrying back till the break of the morn;
Slighting her kindness, and mocking her fears-
Casting a blight on her tendrest years!
Sad, and neglected, and weary I left her:
Sorrow and care of her reason bereft her;
Till, like a star, when it falls from its pride,
She sunk on the bosom of misery, and died.
"I had a child, and it grew like a vine;—
Fair as the rose of Damascus was mine:
Fair and I watched over her innocent youth,
As an angel of heaven would watch over truth.
She grew like her mother, in feature and form;
Her blue eye was languid, her cheek was too warm.
Seventeen summers had shone on her brow-
The seventeenth winter beheld her laid low!
Yonder they sleep in their graves, side by side-
A father, a mother, a daughter, a bride."

Go to your children, and tell them the tale:
Tell them his cheek, too, was lividly pale;
Tell them his eye was bloodshot and cold;
Tell them his purse was a stranger to gold;
Tell them he passed through the world they are in
The victim of sorrow, and misery, and sin;
Tell them, when life's shameful conflicts were past,
In horror and anguish he perished at last.

J. OTIS ROCKWELL.

67. THE DEATH-FIRE.

BENEATH the ever dense and leafy gloom
Of the hushed wilderness, a lurid flame
Crept, like a serpent, gorged with kindling blood,
Around the knotted trunk of an old forest oak;
Then upward and abroad it fiercely spread
Through the dusk pine-tops and the clinging vines,
Till the dark forest crimsoned with the glare.

Strong winds swept through the hot and crackling boughs,
While scintillating sparks-a fiery rain-

Fell from the arrowy flames that darted through
The black and smoky air.

In double ranks, around that flaming tree,

Sat fierce-browed warriors, like a crowd of fiends,
Sent forth to hold their orgies on the earth.
Their shafted arrows, and the sinewy bow,
The tomahawk, and club, and keen-edged knife,
Flashed back the fire, and there all hotly gleamed
In the tall grass, that, coiled all crisply back,
Grew stiff and died on the scorched earth.
The sparkling river, flowing with sweet chime,
So cool and tranquil in its verdant banks,
In gentle contrast with the flaming trees,
And the red demons crouching underneath,
Mocked the devoted victims.

One was a girl, so gently fair,
She seemed a being of upper air,
Lured by the sound of the waters' swell,
To the haunt of demons dark and fell!
Shackled by many a galling thong,
But in Christian courage firm and strong,

ANN S. STEPHENS.-T. B. MACAULAY.

Stood a brave man, with his eye on fire,
As he bent its glance on the funeral pyre ;-
Yet his bosom heaved and his heart beat quick;
His labored breath came fast and thick;
His cheek grew pale, and drops of pain
Sprang to his brow, like beaded rain,
As he felt the clasp of his pallid bride,
Where she clung in fear to his prisoned side.
A savage shout-a fierce, deep yell-
Rings up through the forest, cove, and dell:
The wood is alive on either hand

With the rushing feet of that murderous band.
One start from the earth-one feeble cry,

Like the moan of a fawn when the hounds are nigh—
And she sinks to the ground with a shuddering thrill,
And lies at his feet all cold and still.

With the mighty strength of his stern despair,
Like a lion roused in his guarded lair,
The youth has rended his bonds apart-
The bride is snatched to his throbbing heart!
With a bound he clears the savage crew,
And plunges on toward the bark canoe.
He nears the bank-a fiendish scream
From the baffled foes rings o'er the stream:
He springs to the bark ;-away, away!-
It is lost from sight in the flashing spray!

327

ANN S. STEPHENS.

68. THE BATTLE OF IVRY.

OH! how our hearts were beating,
When at the dawn of day,
We saw the army of the League
Drawn out in long array;
With all its priest-led citizens,
And all its rebel peers,
And Appenzel's stout infantry,

And Egmont's Flemish spears.

There rode the brood of false Lorraine,

The curses of our land!

And dark Mayenne was in the midst,

A truncheon in his hand;

And, as we looked on them, we thought
Of Seine's empurpled flood,
And good Coligni's hoary hair
All dabbled with his blood;
And we cried unto the living God,
Who rules the fate of war,
To fight for his own holy name,
And Henry of Navarre.

The king is come to marshal us,
In all his armor drest,

And he has bound a snow-white plume
Upon his gallant crest.
He looked upon his people,

And a tear was in his eye;

He looked upon the traitors,

And his glance was stern and high. Right graciously he smiled on us, As rolled from wing to wing, Down all our line in deafening shout, "God save our lord, the king.' "And if my standard-bearer fall, As fall full well he may

For never saw I promise yet

Of such a bloody fray

Press where ye see my white plume shine, Amidst the ranks of war,

And be your oriflamme to-day

The helmet of Navarre !"

Hurrah! the foes are moving!
Hark to the mingled din

Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum,
And roaring culverin!

The fiery duke is pricking fast
Across Saint André's plain,
With all the hireling chivalry
Of Guelders and Almayne.
Now by the lips of those ye love,
Fair gentlemen of France,
Charge for the golden lilies now,
Upon them with the lance!
A thousand spurs are striking deep,
A thousand spears in rest,