His flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbowed,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
He has seen from his eyry the forest below
In bud and in leaf, robed with crimson and snow;
The thickets, deep wolf-lairs, the high crag his throne,
And the shriek of the panther has answered his own.
He has seen the wild red man the lord of the shades,
And the smoke of his wigwams curl thick in the glades;
He has seen the proud forest melt breath-like away,
And the breast of the earth lying bare to the day;
He sees the green meadow-grass hiding the lair,
And his crag-throne spread naked to sun and to air;
And his shriek is now answered, while sweeping along
By the low of the herd and the husbandman's song;
He has seen the wild red man off-swept by his foes,
And he sees dome and roof where those smokes once arose
But his flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbowed,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
An emblem of Freedom, stern, haughty, and high,
Is the gray forest-eagle, that king of the sky!
It scorns the bright scenes, the gay places of earth—
By the mountain and torrent it springs into birth;
There rocked by the wild wind, baptized in the foam,
It is guarded and cherished, and there is its home!
When its shadow steals black o'er the empires of kings
Deep terror, deep heart-shaking terror it brings;
Where wicked Oppression is armed for the weak,
Then rustles its pinion, then echoes its shriek;
Its eye flames with vengeance, it sweeps on its
And its talons are bathed in the blood of its prey.
Oh, that eagle of Freedom! when cloud upon cloud
Swathed the sky of my own native land with a shroud,
When lightnings gleamed fiercely, and thunderbolts rung
How proud to the tempest those pinions were flung!
Though the wild blast of battle swept fierce through the air
With darkness and dread, still the eagle was there;
Unquailing, still speeding, his swift flight was on,
Till the rainbow of Peace crowned the victory won.
Oh, that eagle of Freedom! age dims not his eye,
He has seen Earth's mortality spring, bloom, and die!
He has seen the strong nations rise, flourish, and fall;
He mocks at Time's changes, he triumphs o'er all:
He has seen our own land with wild forests o'erspread,
He sees it with sunshine and joy on its head;
And his presence will bless this, his own chosen clime,
Till the archangel's fiat is set upon time.
Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe, D. D.
HE chimes, the chimes of Motherland,
Of England, green and old,
That out from fane and ivied tower
A thousand years have tolled;
How glorious must their music be
As breaks the hallowed day,
And calleth with a seraph's voice
A nation up to pray!
I hose chimes that tell a thousand tales,
Sweet tales of olden time!
And ring a thousand memories
At vesper, and at prime;
At bridal and at burial,
For cottager and king
Those chimes-those glorious Christian chimes,
How blessedly they ring!
Those chimes, those chimes of Motherland,
Upon a Christmas morn,
Outbreaking, as the angels did,
For a Redeemer born;
How merrily they call afar,
To cot and baron's hall,
With holly decked and mistletoe,
To keep the festival!
The chimes of England, how they peal
From tower and Gothic pile,
Where hymn and swelling anthem fili
The dim cathedral-aisle;
Where windows bathe the holy light
On priestly heads that falls,
And stain the florid tracery
And banner-dighted walls!
And then, those Easter bells, in Spring,
Those glorious Easter chimes;
How loyally they hail thee round,
Old queen of holy times!
From hill to hill, like sentinels,
Responsively they cry,
And sing the rising of the LORD,
From vale to mountain high.
I love ye, chimes of Motherland,
With all this soul of mine,
And bless the LORD that I am sprung
Of good old English line!
And, like a son, I sing the lay
That England's glory tells;
For she is lovely to the LORD,
For you, ye Christian bells!
And heir of her ancestral fame,
And happy in my birth,
Thee too I love, my
The joy of all the earth;
For thine thy mother's voice shall be,
And here where God is King
With English chimes, from Christian spires,
The wilderness shall ring.
HAST been where the full-blossomed bay-tree is blowing
With odours like Eden's around?
fast seen where the broad-leaved palmetto is growing, And wild vines are fringing the ground?
Hast sat in the shade of catalpas, at noon,
And ate the cool gourds of their clime;
Or slept where magnolias were screening the moon,
And the mocking-bird sung her sweet rhyme?
And didst mark in thy journey, at dew-dropping eve,
Some ruin peer high o'er thy way,
With rooks wheeling round it, and bushes to weave
A mantle for turrets so gray?
ye ask if some lord of the cavalier kind
Lived there, when the country was young?
And burned not the blood of a Christian, to find
How there the old prayer-bell had rung?
And did ye not glow when they told ye—the LORD
Had dwelt in that thistle-grown pile;
And that bones of old Christians were under its sward,
That once had knelt down in its aisle
Ana had ye no tear-drops your blushes to steep
When ye thought-o'er your country so broad,
The bard seeks in vain for a mouldering heap,
Save only these churches of GOD!
O ye that shall pass by those ruins agen,
Go kneel in their alleys and pray,
And not till their arches have echoed "Amen!"
Rise up, and fare on in your way;
Pray God that those aisles may be crowded once more,
Those altars surrounded and spread,
While anthems and prayers are upsent as of yore,
As they take of the wine-cup and bread.
Ay, pray on thy knees, that each old rural fane
They have left to the bat and the mole,
May sound with the loud-pealing organ again,
And the full swelling voice of the soul
Peradventure, when next thou shalt journey thereby,
Even-bells shall ring out on the air,
And the dim-lighted windows reveal to thine eye
The snowy-robed pastor at prayer.
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