Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

CXV. THE SOLDIERS' RALLY.

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

1. Oh rally round the banner, boys, now freedom's chosen sign!

See where amid the clouds of war its new-born glories shine! The despot's doom, the slave's dear hope, we bear it on the foe!

God's voice rings down the brightening path!

Say, brothers, will ye go?

2. "My father fought at Donelson; he held at dawn of day That flag full blown upon the walls, and proudly passed away." "My brother fell on Newbern's shore; he bared his radiant

head,

And shouted ' On! the day is won!'—leaped forward and was dead."

"My chosen friend of all the world hears not the bugle-call; A bullet pierced his loyal heart by Richmond's fatal wall." But seize the hallowed swords they dropped, with blood yet moist and red!

Fill up the thinned, immortal ranks, and follow where they

led!

For right is might, and truth is God, and He upholds our

cause,

The grand old cause our fathers loved,- Freedom and Equal Laws!

3. " My mother's hair is thin and white; she looked me in

the face,

She clasped me to her heart and said, 'Go take thy brother's place!""

"My sister kissed her sweet farewell; her maiden cheeks were

wet;

Around my neck her arms she threw; I feel the pressure

yet."

"My wife sits by the cradle's side, and keeps our little home, Or asks the baby on her knee, 'When will thy father come?" "

Oh, woman's faith and man's stout arm shall right the ancient wrong!

So, farewell, mother, sister, wife! God keep you brave and

strong!

The whizzing shell may burst in fire, the shrieking bullet fly, The heavens and earth may mingle grief, the gallant soldier

die;

But while a haughty rebel stands, no peace, for peace is war; The land that is not worth our death is not worth living for!

4. Then rally round the banner, boys! Its triumph draweth nigh!

See where above the clouds of war its seamless glories fly! Peace hovering o'er the bristling van, waves palm and laurel

fair,

And victory binds the rescued stars in freedom's golden hair!

CXVI. SLAVERY.

WILLIAM COWPER.

1. O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade!
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more. My ear is pained,
My soul is sick, with every day's report

Of

wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.

2. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart;
It does not feel for man; the natural bond
Of brotherhood is severed, as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

Not colored like his own; and having power
To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.

3. Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,

Chains him and tasks him and exacts his sweat
With stripes that mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.

4. Then what is man? And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.
No dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation, prized above all price,

I had much rather be myself the slave

And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.

5. We have no slaves at home-then why abroad? And they themselves, once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emancipate and loosed.

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it, then,
And let it circulate through every vein

Of all your empire; that where Britain's power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

CXVII. THE TRUE MAN DOES NOT WISH TO BE A CHILD AGAIN.

J. G. HOLLAND.

1. It is very natural that a man should be blinded and pained by passing from a shaded room into dazzling sunlight. It is a serious thing to leap from a luxurious enervating warm bath into cold water. All sudden transitions are shocking; and God has contrived the transitions of our lives so that they may be mainly gradual. It is not to be wondered at that many men and women, by having the responsibilities of men and women thrust upon them too early, are shocked, and look back upon the shady places they have left, and long to rest their eyes there. It is not strange that men recoil from a plunge into the world's cold waters, and long to creep back into the bath from which they have suddenly risen.

2. But that men or women should desire to become children again is impossible. It is only the half-developed, the imperfectly nurtured, the mean-spirited, and the demoralized, who look back to the innocence, the helplessness, and the simple animal joy and content of childhood with genuine regret for their loss. I want no better evidence that a person's life is

regarded by himself as a failure, than that furnished by his honest willingness to be restored to his childhood.

3. When a man is ready to relinquish the power of his mature reason, his strength and skill for self-support, the independence of his will and life, his bosom companion and children, his interest in the stirring affairs of his time, his part in deciding the great questions which agitate his age and nation, his intelligent apprehension of the relation which exists between himself and his Maker, and his rational hope of immortality-if he have one-for the negative animal contents, and frivolous enjoyments of a child, he does not deserve the name of a man ;· he is a weak, unhealthy, broken-down creature, or a base poltroon.

[ocr errors]

4. Yet I know there are those who will read this sentence with tears and with complaint. I know there are those whose existence has been a long struggle with sickness and trial, whose lives have been crowded with great griefs and disappointments, who sit in darkness and impotency while the world rolls by them. They have seen no joy and felt no content since childhood, and many of them look with languid pity upon children, because the careless creatures do not know into what a heritage of sin and sorrow they are entering. I have only to say to them that the noblest exhibitions of manhood and womanhood I have ever seen, or the world has ever seen, are among their number.

5. A woman with the hope of heaven in her eyes, incorruptible virtue in her heart, and honesty in every endeavor, has smiled serenely a million times in this world, while her life and all its earthly expectations were in ruins. Patient sufferers upon beds of pain have forgotten childhood, years ago, and, feeding their souls on prayer, have looked forward with unutterable joy to the transition from womanhood to angelhood. Men utterly forsaken by friends, contemned,

« ZurückWeiter »