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Green woods and glens your fathers loved-
Whom smile they for, if not for you?
And could your fathers' spirits look

From lands where deathless verdure waves,
Nor curse the craven hearts that brook
To barter for a nation's graves!

Then raise once more the warrior song,
That tells despair and death are nigh ;
Let the loud summons peal along,
Rending the arches of the sky.
And till your last white foe shall kneel,
And in his coward pangs expire-
Sleep-but to dream of brand and steel,
Wake-but to deal in blood and fire!

LESSON CXXVIII.

O, LET US DIE LIKE MEN.

The following patriotic lines were written by LIEUT. G. W. PATTEN, immediately preceding a battle with the Indians in Florida. The Editor would not have introduced so many pieces that breathe the war spirit, however recommended by the charms of verse, were he not aware that the best pieces for declamation are often mere exhibitions of passion, and did he not believe that, ere long, if not alrea dy, such pieces as the following will be considered as the mile-stones of human progress, beacons to warn rather than examples to excite the angry passions. Fortunately the ways of peace, though too quiet to stir up the spirit to unhealthy action, are daily furnishing more and more moving themes for the poet.

Roll out the banner on the air,

And draw your swords of flame!
The forming squadrons fast prepare
To take the field of Fame.
With measured step your columns dun
Close up along the glen,

If we must die ere set of sun,

O, let us die like men!

We seek the foe from night till morn,
A foe we do not see-

Go roll the drum, and wind the horn,
And tell him here are we !

In idle strength, we watch a prey
That lurks by marsh and fen,
But should he strike our lines to-day,
O, let us die like men!

"Tis not to right a kinsman's wrongs
With bristling ranks we come ;—
Our sisters sing their evening songs,
Far in a peaceful home.
We battle, at our country's call
The savage in his den;

If in such struggle we must fall,
Oh! let us die like men.

Remember, boys, that mercy's dower,
Is life to him who yields;
Remember, that the hand of power
Is strongest when it shields.
Keep honor, like your sabres, bright;
Shame coward fear-and then,

If we MUST perish in the fight,
Oh! let us die like MEN.

LESSON CXXIX.

THE SEMINOLE'S REPLY.

The following piece is characteristic of the Seminoles, who for years resisted the American forces in Florida. It is the universal testimony of the earliest travellers and settlers in the United States, that the Indians treated them kindly at first. What produced the very different temper expressed in the following poem by LT. G. W. PATTEN, is a question that must one day be answered.--Scorn must be the predominant expression of the speaker.

Blaze! with your serried columns,

I will not bend the knee!

The shackle ne'er again shall bind
The arm which now is free:
I have mailed it with the thunder

When the tempest muttered low :
And, where it falls, ye
well may

The lightning of its blow.

I've scared ye in the city,

dread

I've scalped ye on the plain;
Go, count your chosen where they fell
Beneath my leaden rain-

I scorn your proffered treaty,
The pale-face I defy ;

Revenge is stamped upon my spear,
And Blood' my battle cry.

Some strike for hope of booty,
Some to defend their all-
I battle for the joy I have

To see the white man fall:
I love, among the wounded,
To hear his dying moan,
And catch, while chanting at his side,
The music of his groan.

Ye've trailed me through the forest,
Ye've tracked me o'er the stream,
And, struggling through the ever-glade,
Your bristling bayonets gleam:
But, I stand as should the warrior,
With his rifle and his spear:
The scalp of vengeance still is red,
And warns ye-Come not here!

Think ye to find my homestead?
I gave it to the fire!

My tawny household do ye seek?

I am a childless sire.*

But should ye crave life's nourishment,
Enough I have and good

I live on hate-'tis all my bread,
Yet light is not my food.

I loathe you with my bosom,
I scorn you with mine eye-
And I'll taunt you with my latest breath,
And fight you till I die!

I ne'er will ask you quarter,

And I ne'er will be your slave:
But I'll swim the sea of slaughter,
Till I sink beneath its wave.

LESSON CXXX.

SINGING FOR THE MILLION.

The following witty hit at one of the nuisances of London, and of many other places of less pretension, was written by THOMAS HOOD, the comic poet of England. The third paragraph would have been omitted had it not appeared to the Editor to be a just satire upon many who would be shocked to use a profane expression, but who act an oath more effectually than if they had spoken it. Stentor, to whom the unlucky singer is compared, was a Greek soldier, who went to the Trojan war, and had a voice, says Homer, equal to that of fifty com

mon men.

In one of those back streets, to peace so dear,

The other day, a ragged wight
Began to sing with all his might,

"I have a silent sorrow here!"
In vain the sashes closed,

And doors, against the persevering Stentor,

*It will be remembered that many of the Seminoles killed their own children, they being considered an encumbrance to the war.

Though brick, and glass, and solid oak opposed, The intruding voice would enter.

Louder, and louder still,

The fellow sang with horrible good will,
Curses both loud and deep, his sole gratuities,
From scribes bewildered, so making many a flaw.
From room to room, from floor to floor,
From Number One to Twenty-Four,
The nuisance bellowed, till all patience lost,
Down came Miss Frost,

66

Expostulating at her open door-
Peace, monster, peace!
Where is the new Police!

I vow I can not work, or read, or pray,
Don't stand there bawling, fellow, don't!
You really send my serious thoughts astray,
Do-there's a dear, good man-do, go away."
Says he, "I WON'T!"

The spinster pulled her door too with a slam,
That sounded like a wooden d-n,
For so some moral people, strictly loth
To swear in words, however up,

Will crash a crate in setting down a cup,'
Or through a door post vent a banging oath-
In fact, this sort of physical transgression
Is really no more difficult to trace
Than, in a given face,

A very bad expression.

However, in she went,

Leaving the subject of her discontent To Mr. Jones's Clerk, at Number Ten, Who, throwing up the sash,

With accents rash,

Thus hailed the most vociferous of men.

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