Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

In all its greatness. It has told itself
To the astonished gaze of awe-struck kings,
At Marathon,' at Bannockburn,' and here,
Where first our patriots sent the invader back
Broken and cowed. Let these green elms be all
To tell us where they fought, and where they lie.
4. Their feelings were all nature, and they need
No art to make them known. They live in us,
While we are like them, simple, hardy, bold,
Worshiping nothing but our own pure hearts,
And the one universal Lord. They need
No column pointing to the heaven they sought,
To tell us of their home. The heart itself,
Left to its own free purpose, hastens there,
And there alone reposes.

5.

Let these elms
Bend their protecting shadow o'er their graves,
And build with their green roof the only fane,
Where we may gather on the hallowed day
That rose to them in blood, and set in glory.
Here let us meet, and while our motionless lips
Give not a sound, and all around is mute

In the deep Sabbath of a heart too full

For words or tears-here let us strew the sod

With the first flowers of spring, and make to them
An offering of the plenty Nature gives,

And they have rendered ours-perpetually.

PERCIVAL.

JAMES GATES PERCIVAL, the poet, was born in Berlin, near Hartford, in Connecticut, on the 15th of September, 1795. He entered Yale College when fifteen years of age, and graduated with the highest honors in 1815. From Yale Medical School, in 1820, he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He first appeared before the public, as an author, in 1821, when he published some minor poems, and the first part of his "Prometheus," which at once attracted attention, and was favorably noticed by Edward Everett, in the N. A. Review. In 1822 he published two volumes of miscellaneous poems and prose writings, entitled "Clio," and the second part of "Prometheus." An edition of his principal poetical writings soon after appeared in New York, and was republished in Lon

'Măr a thon, a hamlet, a small river, and a plain of Greece, govern ment of Attica. The plain is noted for the victory of Miltiades over the army of Xerxes, B. c. 490.

'Băn' nock burn, a town of Scotland, famous for the great victory gained here, 24th of June, 1314, by the Scots, under Bruce, over the English, commanded by Edward II.

don. He was appointed assistant surgeon in the U. S. army in 1824, and acted as Professor of Chemistry in the Military Academy at West Point. The third vol. ume of "Clio" appeared in New York early in 1827. For two years subsequent he superintended the printing of the first quarto edition of Dr. Webster's American Dictionary. In 1835 he was employed by the government of Connecticut to make a geological survey of that State, an elaborate and very able report of which was printed in 1842. While engaged in these duties, he published poetical translations from eleven modern languages, and wrote a portion of "The Dream of Day and other Poems," which appeared in 1843. In 1854 he was appointed State Geologist of Wisconsin. He died in 1856. Few men possessed higher poetical qualities than Percival. His learning was comprehensive and thorough. He had a rich imagination, a remarkable command of language, and wrote with a facility rarely equaled.

H

VIII.

84. THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.

ERE are old trees, tall oaks, and gnarlèd pines,

That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground Was never touched by spade, and flowers spring up Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet

To linger here, among the flitting birds

And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks and winds
That shake the leaves, and scatter as they pass
A fragrance from the cedars thickly set

With pale blue berries. In these peaceful shades-
Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old-

My thoughts go up the long dim path of years,
Back to the earliest days of Liberty.

2. O FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap
With which the Roman master crowned his slave,
When he took off the gyves. A bearded man,
Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailèd hand

3.

Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred

With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs

Are strong and struggling.

Power at thee has launched

His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee:

They could not quench the life thou hast from Heaven.
Merciless Power has dug thy dungeon deep,

And his swart armorers by a thousand fires,

Have forged thy chain; yet while he deems thee bound,
The links are shivered, and the prison walls
Fall outward: terribly thou springèst förth,
As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And shoutèst to the nations, who return
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.
4. Thy birth-right 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,
The 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.
5. Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years,
But he shall fade into a feebler age;

6.

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 thread,
That grow to fetters; or bind down thy arms

With chains concealed in chaplets.

Oh! not yet Mayst thou unbrace thy corslet, 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
the unviolated earth,

Were young upon

And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new,
Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced.

[ocr errors]

IX.

85. LIBERTY.

BRYANT.

IBERTY, gentlemen, is a solemn thing-a welcome, a joyous, a glorious thing, if you please; but it is a solemn thing. A free people must be a thoughtful people. The subjects of a despot may be reckless and gay if they can. A free people must be serious; for it has to do the greatest thing that ever was done in the world-to govern itself.

2. That hour in human life is most serious, when it passes from parental control, into free manhood: then must the man bind the righteous law upon himself, more strongly than father or mother ever bound it upon him. And when a people leaves the leading-strings of prescriptive authority, and enters upon the ground of freedom, that ground must be fenced with law; it must be tilled with wisdom; it must be hallowed with prayer. The tribunal of justice, the free school, the holy church must be built there, to intrench, to defend, and to keep the sacred heritage.

3. Liberty, I repeat, is a solemn thing. The world, up to this time, has regarded it as a boon-not as a bond. And there is nothing, I seriously believe, in the present crises of human affairs -there is no point in the great human welfare, on which men's ideas so much need to be cleared up-to be advanced-to be raised to a higher standard, as this grand and terrible responsibility of freedom.

4. In the universe there is no trust so awful as moral freedom; and all good civil freedom depends upon the use of that. But look at it. Around every human, every rational being, is drawn a circle; the space within is cleared from obstruction, or, at least, from all coërcion; it is sacred to the being himself who stands there; it is secured and consecrated to his own responsibility. May I say it?-God himself does not penetrate there with any absolute, any coërcive power! He compels the winds and waves to obey him; he compels animal instincts to obey

him; but he does not compel man to obey. That sphere he leaves free; he brings influences to bear upon it; but the last, final, solemn, infinite question between right and wrong, he leaves to man himself.

5. Ah! instead of madly delighting in his freedom, I could imagine a man to protest, to complain, to tremble that such a tremendous prerogative' is accorded to him. But it is accorded to him; and nothing but willing obedience can discharge that solemn trust; nothing but a heroism greater than that which fights battles, and pours out its blood on its country's altar-the heroism of self-renunciation' and self-control.

8

4

1 Pre rog a tive, an exclusive or peculiar privilege or right.

it.

6. Come that liberty! I invoke it with all the ardor of the poëts and orators of freedom; with Spenser' and Milton, with Hampden and Sydney,' with Rienzi and Dante,' with Hamilton and Washington, I invoke Come that liberty! come death with iron resolution. His very able "Discourses concerning Government was a posthumous work. Rienzi, (re ên'ze), the orator, famous in Roman history for his assumption of dictatorship in that capital, born about 1310, was distinguished by his love of the ancient republican institutions of Rome, and by his profound knowledge of antiquity. He was massacred in 1354.

"Renunciation, ('nun`shi a'shun). 'Edmund Spenser, excepting Shakspeare, the greatest poet of his time, author of the "Faerie Queene," was born in London about 1553, where he died on the 16th of January, 1599. 4 John Hampden, celebrated for his resistance to the imposition of taxes without authority of parliament, and to the royal prerogative of Charles I., commander of a troop in the parliamentary army, was born at London in 1594, and was mortally wounded in an affair with Prince Rupert on 18th of June, 1643.

6

Algernon Sydney, second son of Robert, Earl of Leicester, England, was born about the year 1621. In early youth he fought in the ranks of the parliamentary forces. A thorough republican, he was inimical to all monarchy, and opposed to the ascendancy of Cromwell. He was abroad at the Restoration, and was permitted to return to England in 1677. For his supposed connection with the Ryehouse Plot, he was beheaded December 7th, 1683. He met

6

7

was

Dante, (dån′te), the poet, author of the "Divina Commedia," born at Florence in 1265, and died at Ravenna, in 1321.

* Alexander Hamilton, distinguished asa statesman, jurist, soldier, and financier, one of the ablest officers in the American Revolution, was born in the West Indies, in 1757. In 1782 he was a member of Congress from New York. In 1789, Washington, the first President, placed him at the head of the Treasury. On the death of Washington, in 1799, his rank made him commander-in-chief of the American army. He was challenged by Aaron Burr, and a duel was the consequence, in which he was mortally wounded, at the age of forty-seven.

« AnteriorContinuar »