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,

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;

OLD IRONSIDES.

Nail to the mast her holy flag,

Set every threadbare sail,

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

O. W. HOLMES.

to England.

I.

LEAR and Cordelia! 'twas an ancient tale

Before thy Shakespeare gave it deathless fame; The times have changed, the moral is the same. So like an outcast, dowerless and pale, Thy daughter went; and in a foreign gale

Spread her young banner, till its sway became A wonder to the nations. Days of shame Are close upon thee; prophets raise their wail. When the rude Cossack with an outstretched hand Points his long spear across the narrow sea, "Lo! there is England!" when thy destiny Storms on thy straw-crowned head, and thou dost stand

Weak, helpless, mad, a by-word in the land,

God grant thy daughter a Cordelia be! [1852.]

II.

Stand, thou great bulwark of man's liberty!
Thou rock of shelter, rising from the wave,
Sole refuge to the overwearied brave

Who planned, arose, and battled to be free,
Fell, undeterred, then sadly turned to thee, -

TO ENGLAND.

Saved the free spirit from their country's grave, To rise again, and animate the slave, When God shall ripen all things. Britons, ye Who guard the sacred outpost, not in vain

Hold your proud peril! Freemen undefiled, Keep watch and ward! Let battlements be piled Around your cliffs; fleets marshalled, till the main Sink under them; and if your courage wane,

Through force or fraud, look westward to your child!

[1853.]

G. H. BOKER.

The Wreck of the Hesperus.

T was the schooner Hesperus,

IT

That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughter,

To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,

His pipe was in his mouth,

And he watched how the veering flaw did blow

The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailòr,

Had sailed to the Spanish Main,

"I pray thee, put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!"