I tried to cheer. I cannot say Whether I swam or sank; A blue mist closed around my eyes, When I awoke, a soldier lad, With two great tears upon his cheeks, I tried to speak. He understood He turned me. There, thank God! the flag And there, while thread shall hang to thread, The noblest constellation set A sign that we who live may claim GEORGE H. BOKER. THE GREAT BELL ROLAND. [Opportunity is here afforded for vigorous expression. Study variety.] Toll! Roland, toll! In old Saint Bavon's tower, At midnight hour, The great bell Roland spoke; And all that slept in Ghent awoke! Why echoed every street All flying to the city's wall? That Freedom stood in peril of a foe! And even timid hearts grew bold And every hand a sword could hold! Like patriots then- Toll! Roland, toll! Bell never yet was hung, If men be patriots still, Great souls will thrill! Then toll! and let thy test And let him stand confest. Toll! Roland, toll! Not now in old Saint Bavon's tower; Not now from river Scheldt to Zuyder Zee But here, this side the sea! Toll here, in broad, bright day!— For not by night awaits A noble foe without the gates, But perjured friends within betray, Toll! Roland, toll! Thy sound is not too soon! To Arms! Ring out the Leader's call! Reëcho it from East to West, Till every hero's breast Shall swell beneath a soldier's crest! Toll! Roland, toll! Till cottager from cottage-wall Snatch pouch and powder-horn and gun! The heritage of sire to son Ere half of Freedom's work was done!, Toll! Roland, toll! Till swords from scabbards leap! Toll! Roland, toll! What tears can widows weep More Litter than when brave men fall! Toll! Roland, toll! In shadowed hut and hall Shall lie the soldier's pall, And hearts shall break while graves are filled! And may His grace anoint us all! Toll! Roland, toll! The Dragon on thy tower And Freedom now is safe in Ghent! And in the land's serene content, So let it be! A kingly king is he Who keeps his people free! Toll! Roland, toll! Ring out across the sea! No longer, they, but we, Have now such need of thee! Nor ever let thy throat Keep dumb its warning note Till Free lom's flag, wherever waved, Toll! Roland, toll! From Northern lake to Southern strand 1 Till friend and foe, at thy command, THEODORE TILTON. POETRY. [Poetry may be considered in a twofold view, as a spirit and a manifestation. Perhaps the poetic spirit has never been more justly defined, than by Byron in his Prophecy of Dante,-a creation "From overfeeling good or ill, an aim At an eternal life beyond our fate." This spirit may be manifested by language, metrical or prose, by declamation, by musical sounds, by expression, by gesture, by motion, and by imitating forms, colors and shades; so that literature, oratory, music, physiognomy, acting, and the arts of painting and sculpture may all have their poetry; but that peculiar spirit, which alone gives the great life and charm to all the efforts of genuis, is as distinct from the measure and rhyme of poetical composition, as from the scientific principles cf drawing and perspective.] The world is full of poetry-the air Is living with its spirit; and the waves And sparkle in its brightness. Earth is veiled, The year leads round the seasons in a choir Far off, in moonlight evenings, on the shore 'Tis not the chime and flow of words, that move 'Tis not the union of returning sounds, With all existences, in earth and Heaven, And rounded period, poor and vapid thoughts, Well I remember, in my boyish days, How deep the feeling when my eye looked forth Of summer's Ileaven of glory, and the waves, And, oh! I stood, in breathless longing fixed, Nor less the swelling of my heart, when high Rose the blue arch of autumn, cloudless, pure As nature, at her dawning, when she sprang Fresh from the hand that wrought her; where the eye Caught not a speck upon the soft serene, To stain its deep cerulean, but the cloud, That floated, like a lonely spirit, there, White as the snow of Zemla, or the foam. |