3 Thy birthright was not given by human hands;
Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields,
While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him,
To tend the quiet flock, and watch the stars,
And teach the reed to utter simple airs.
Thou, by his side, amid the tangled wood,
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf,
His only foes; and thou with him didst draw
The earliest furrows on the mountain-side,
Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself,
Thy enemy, although of reverend look,
Hoary with many years, and far obeyed,
Is later born than thou; and as he meets
The grave defiance of thine elder eye,
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.

4 Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years, But he shall fade into a feebler age;

5

Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares,
And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap
His withered hands, and from their ambush call
His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send
Quaint maskers, forms of fair and gallant mien,
To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words
To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth,
Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thre d,
That grow to fetters, or bind down thy arms

With chains concealed in chaplets.

O, not yet

Mayst thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by
Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom, close thy lids
In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps,
And thou must watch and combat till the day
Of the new earth and heaven. But wouldst thou rest
Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men,

These old and friendly solitudes invite

Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees
Were young upon the unviolated earth,
And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new,
Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced.

[Buena Vista is a hamlet in Mexico where the Mexican army, under General Santa Anna, was defeated by the Americans, under General Taylor, February 22 and 23, 1847. La Angostura is about a mile and a half distant. La Puebla, (pwā'blä, or poo-ā'blà,) is the second city of Mexico.]

SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away,
O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array,
Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they near?
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear.

"Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls;
Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls!
Who is losing? who is winning? -"Over hill and over plain,
I see but smoke of cannon, clouding through the mountain rain.”

Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look Ximena, look once more: "Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before, Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, foot and horse, Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course."

Look forth once more Ximena! "Ah! the smoke has rolled away; And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks of gray. Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop of Minon* wheels; There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon at their heels.

"Jesu, pity! how it thickens! now retreat and now advance! Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance! Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and foot together fall; Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern ball."

*Minon, (pronounced min-yon,) was a Mexican general.

Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on.
Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost and who has won?
"Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together fall;
O'er the dying rush the living; pray, my sisters, for them all!

"Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting; Blessed Mother, save my brain!
I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of slain.
Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they fall, and strive to rise;
Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die before our eyes!

"Oh my heart's love! oh my dear one! lay thy poor head on my

knee;

Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst thou hear me? Canst thou see?

Oh, my husband, brave and gentle ! oh my Bernard, look once more On the blessed cross before thee! mercy! mercy! all is o'er."

Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one down to rest;
Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his breast;
Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said;
To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid,

Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay, Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away; But, as tenderly before him, the lorn Ximena knelt,

She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol belt.

With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head;

With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead;

But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain,

And she raised the cooling water to his parched lips again.

Whispered low the dying soldier, prossed her hand, and faintly smiled, Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside her child? All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied; With her kiss upon his forchead, "Mother!" murmured he, and died

"A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth,
From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping lonely, in the North!"
Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead,
And turned to soothe the living, and bind the wounds which bled.

Look forth once more, Ximena! "Like a cloud before the wind
Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and death behind ; .
Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the wounded strive;
Hide your faces, holy angels! O, thou Christ of God, forgive!"

Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool, gray shadows fall; Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all! Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled, In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold.

But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued,

Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and lacking

food;

Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung, And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue.

Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours;

Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers; From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air!

[RUFUS CHOATE was born in Essex, Massachusetts, October 1, 1799, and died July 13, 1859. He was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1819, and adnitted to the bar in 1824. He practised his profession first at Danvers, then at Salem, and for the last twenty-five years of his life at Boston. He was chosen to the house of representatives in 1832, and served there a single term. He was a member of the senate from February, 1841, to March, 1845. He was a brilliant and cloquent advocate, with unrivalled power over a jury, a thoroughly instructed lawyer, and a scholar of wide range and various cultivation. His writings, consisting of lectures, addresses, and speeches, are distinguished by a combination of logical power and imaginative splendor.

The following extract is from an oration delivered in Boston on the eightysecond anniversary of American Independence, July 5, 1858.]

BUT now, by the side of this and all antagonisms, higher than they, stronger than they, there rises colossal the fine, sweet spirit of nationality, the nationality of America. See there the pillar of fire which God has kindled, and

Gaze on

Between

lifted, and moved, for our hosts and our ages. that, worship that, worship the highest in that. that light and our eyes a cloud for a time may seem to gather; chariots, armed men on foot, the troops of kings, 5 may march on us, and our fears may make us for a moment turn from it; a sea may spread before us, and waves seem to hedge us up; dark idolatries may alienate some hearts for a season from that worship; revolt, rebellion, may break out in the camp, and the waters of our springs 10 may run bitter to the taste, and mock it; between us and

that Canaan a great river may seem to be rolling; but beneath that high guidance our way is onward, ever onward. Those waters shall part, and stand on either hand in heaps; that idolatry shall repent; that rebellion shall 15 be crushed; that stream shall be sweetened; that overflowing river shall be passed on foot, dry-shod, in harvesttime; and from that promised land of flocks, fields, tents, mountains, coasts, and ships, from north and south, and east and west, there shall swell one cry yet, of victory, 20 peace, and thanksgiving!

But we were seeking the nature of the spirit of nationality, and we pass in this inquiry from contrast to analysis. You may call it, in one aspect, a mode of contemplating the nation in its essence, and so far it is an intel25 lectual conception, and you may call it a feeling towards the nation thus contemplated, and so far it is an emotion. In the intellectual exercise it contemplates the nation as it is one, and as it is distinguished from all other nations, and in the emotional exercise it loves it, and is proud of 30 it as thus it is contemplated.

This you may call its ultimate analysis. But how much more is included in it! How much flows from it!

How

cold and inadequate is such a description, if we leave it there! Think of it first as a state of consciousness, as a 35 spring of feeling, as a motive to exertion, as blessing your country, and as reacting on you. Think of it as it fills