Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

mother of freemen, and ages hence, as now, she will eclipse her sex in all the world. God bless American women, and preserve to them for ever the virtues and graces of their glorious mothers.

WERT thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious and free,
First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea,
I might hail the with prouder, with happier brow,
But oh! could I love thee more deeply than now?

LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS.

THE breaking waves dashed high

On a stern and rock-bound coast, And the woods against a stormy sky, Their giant branches tossed;

And the heavy night hung dark

The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,

They, the true-hearted, came,

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,

And the trumpet that sings of fame.

Not as the flying come,

In silence, and in fear;

They shook the depths of the desert's gloom

With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard, and the sea;

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang

To the anthem of the free.

The ocean eagle soared

From his nest by the white wave's foam, And the rocking pines of the forest roared; This was their welcome home.

There were men with hoary hair,
Amid that pilgrim band,

Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,

Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow, serenely high,

And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Aye, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod !

They have left unstained what there they foundFreedom to worship God!

REJOICINGS ON REPEAL OF STAMP ACT.

BY HON. GEORGE BANCROFT.

THE joy was, for a time, unmixed with apprehension. South Carolina voted Pitt a statue; and Virginia a statue to the king, and an obelisk, on which were to be engraved the names of those who, in England, had signalized themselves for freedom. "My thanks they shall have cordially," said Washington, "for their opposition to any act of oppression." The consequences of enforcing the Stamp Act, he was convinced "would have been more direful than usually apprehended."

Otis, at a meeting at the Town Hall in Boston, to fix a time for the rejoicings, told the people that the distinction between inland taxes and port duties was without foundation; for whoever had a right to impose the one, had a right to impose the other; and, therefore, as the parliament had given up the one, they had given up the other; and the merchants were fools if they submitted any longer to the laws restraining their trade, which ought to be free.

A bright day in May was set apart for the display of the public gladness, and the spot where resistance to the Stamp Act began, was the centre of attraction. At one in the morning the bell nearest Liberty Tree was the first to be

rung; at dawn, colors and pendants rose over the housetops all around it; and the steeple of the nearest meeting-house was hung with banners. During the day all prisoners for debt were released by subscription. In the evening the town shone as though night had not come; an obelisk on the Common was brilliant with a loyal inscription; the houses round Liberty Tree exhibited illuminated figures, not of the king only, but of Pitt, and Camden, and Barre; and Liberty Tree itself was decorated with lanterns, till its boughs could hold

no more.

All the wisest agreed that disastrous consequences would have ensued from the attempt to enforce the Act, so that never was there a more rapid transition of a people from gloom to joy. They compared themselves to a bird escaped from the net of the fowler, and once more striking its wings freely in the upper air; or to Joseph, the Israelite, whom Providence had likewise wonderfully redeemed from the perpetual bondage into which he was sold by his elder brethren. The clergy from the pulpit joined in the fervor of patriotism and the joy of success. "The Americans would not have

submitted," said Chauncey.

"History affords few examples

of a more general, generous, and just sense of liberty in any country than has appeared in America within the year past." Such were Mayhew's words; and while all the continent was calling out and cherishing the name of Pitt, the greatest statesman of England, the conqueror of Canada and the Ohio, the founder of empire, the apostle of freedom;-“To you,” said Mayhew, speaking from the heart of the people, and as

« AnteriorContinuar »