There is courage in his eye; Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat In a moment he must die.

By starlight and moonlight
He seeks the Briton's camp,
And he hears the rustling flag
And the armed sentry's tramp,
And the starlight and moonlight
His silent wanderings lamp.

With slow tread and still tread
He scans the tented line,
And he counts the battery guns

By the gaunt and shadowy pine; And his slow tread and still tread Gives no warning sign.

The dark wave, the plumed wave,
It meets his eager glance,
And it sparkles 'neath the stars
Like the glimmer of a lance;
The dark wave, the plumed wave,
On an emerald expanse.

A sharp clang, a steel clang,
And terror in the sound,

For the sentry, falcon-eyed,

In the camp a spy hath found; With a sharp clang, a steel clang, The patriot is bound.

With calm brow, with steady brow,

He robes him for the tomb;

In his look there is no fear,
Nor a shadow trace of gloom ;
But with calm brow, with steady brow,
He robes him for the tomb.

Through the long night, the still night, He kneels upon the sod,

And the brutal guards withhold

E'en the solemn word of God;

Through the long night, the still night, He walks where Christ hath trod.

In the blue morn, the sunny morn,
He dies upon the tree,

And he mourns that he can lose
But one life for liberty;

In the blue morn, the sunny morn,
His spirit-wings are free.

But his last words, his message words,

They burn, lest friendly eye

Should read how proud and calm

A patriot could die;

With his last words, his message words,

A soldier's battle-cry.

From Fame-leaf and Angel-leaf,

From monument and urn,

The sad of earth, the glad of heaven,
His tragic fate shall learn,
And on Fame-leaf and Angel-leaf
The name of Hale shall burn.

THE ELOQUENCE OF ACTION.

DANIEL Webster.

ELOQUENCE comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object, this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence, is action, noble, sublime, godlike action!

it

THE ORATOR.

PRINCE BISMARCK. TRANSLATED BY THE EDITORS.

ELOQUENCE is a gift which in our time enjoys an influence much greater than is merited by its real value.

-

A great orator must have something of the poet in him, hence he cannot treat truth with mathematical exactness. He must be stimulating, exciting, easily inflammable himself, in order to inflame others. But, I fancy, a great orator will seldom prove a good whist player, seldom a good chess player; seldomer yet a safe and solid statesman. That which must dominate in him is not intelligence, it is temperament. I remember" the essentials of a poet," of Mephistopheles : "The courage of a lion, the swiftness of a stag; the burning blood of the Italian, the cold strength of the North," but they are never found in one and the same mortal. Often enough we come across eloquence joined to an intelligence lifting it above the masses, ruling them dangerously. But a man coldly reflective who weighs things surely, exactly, positively, a man to whom one willingly entrusts the conduct of great and important affairs-that man can never be the ideal

orator.

Is it possible to-day, with our intellectual development, to find a remedy for this evil of eloquence?

I know of none, and yet it is a sort of half remedy to recognize the evil!

WASHINGTON'S ADDRESS TO HIS TROOPS,

DELIVERED BEFORE THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND, 1776.

THE time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness, from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of a brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or to die.

Our own, our country's honor, calls upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion; and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us then rely on the goodness of our cause, and the aid of the Supreme Being, in whose hands victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble actions. The eyes of all our countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the tyranny meditated against them. Let us animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a freeman contending for liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.

Liberty, property, life, and honor are all at stake;