To him a mystery still.

Yet scorn thou not for this the true
And steadfast love of years;
The kindly, that from childhood grew,
The faithful to thy tears!

If there be one that o'er the dead
Hath in thy grief borne part,
And watched through sickness by thy
bed,

Call his a kindred heart!

dering side?

Yea, what is all the riot man can make In his short life, to thy unceasing roar? And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him

Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far

Above its loftiest mountains?—a light

wave,

That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might.

bright,

On which our friendship and our love to write;

That these may never from the soul depart, We trust them to the memory of the heart. There is no dimming, no effacement there; Each new pulsation keeps the record clear; Warm, golden letters all the tablet fill, Nor lose their lustre till the heart stands still.

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

[U. s. A., 1795-1820.]

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

WHEN Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there;
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.

The sign of hope and triumph high!
Flag of the brave, thy folds shall fly,
When speaks the signal-trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on,
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn,
And as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall sink beneath Each gallant arm that strikes below That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas, on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,

And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home,
By angel hands to valor given,
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven. Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,

With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er

us?

And the Moon and the Fairy are watching the deep,

She dispensing her silvery light,
And he his notes as silvery quite,

157

Hark! the notes on my ear that play Are set to words; as they float, they say, "Passing away! passing away!"

But no; it was not a fairy's shell, Blown on the beach, so mellow and clear;

Nor was it the tongue of a silver bell,

Striking the hour, that filled my ear, As I lay in my dream; yet was it a chime That told of the flow of the stream of time. For a beautiful clock from the ceiling hung,

And a plump little girl, for a pendulum,

And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels,

That marched so calmly round above her, Was a little dimmed,

steals

as when Evening

Upon Noon's hot face. Yet one could

n't but love her,

For she looked like a mother whose first babe lay

Rocked on her breast, as she swung all day; And she seemed, in the same silver tone, to say,

"Passing away! passing away!"

While yet I looked, what a change there

came!

Her eye was quenched, and her cheek

was wan;

frame,

"The ox that treadeth out the corn Thou shalt not muzzle." Thus saith God.

And will ye muzzle the free-born,
The man,
the owner of the sod, -
Who "gives the grazing ox his meat,"
And you-his servants here-your seat?

There's a cloud, blackening up the sky! East, west, and north its curtain spreads;

Lift to its muttering folds your eye!
Beware! for bursting on your heads,
It hath a force to bear you down;—
'Tis an insulted people's frown.

Ye may have heard of the Soultán,
And how his Janissaries fell!
Their barracks, near the Atmeidán,

He barred, and fired; and their death-
yell

Went to the stars, and their blood ran In brooks across the Atmeidán.

The despot spake; and, in one night, The deed was done. He wields, alone, The sceptre of the Ottomite,

And brooks no brother near his throne.

Goes round his mightiest subjects' neck;

Yet will he, in his saddle, stoop-
I've seen him, in his palace-yard-
To take petitions from a troop

Of women, who, behind his guard, Come up, their several suits to press, To state their wrongs, and ask redress.