PATRIOTISM AND FREEDOM. The Star-Spangled Banner. H! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, gleaming? the last Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, [streaming: O'er the rampart we watched were so gallantly And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave? On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, No refuge could save the hireling and slave, WHE The American Flag. WHEN Freedom, from her mountain height, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there! Majestic monarch of the cloud! Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest-trumpings loud, When strive the warriors of the storm, And see the lightning lances driven, Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly, Woe to the English soldiery And they who fly in terror deem A mighty host behind, And hear the tramp of thousands Then sweet the hour that brings release We talk the battle over, And share the battle's spoil. The woodland rings with laugh and shout, And woodland flowers are gathered With merry songs we mock the wind That in the pine-top grieves, Well knows the fair and friendly moon The scampering of their steeds. Grave men there are by broad Santee, -William Cullen Bryant. THE Washington's Address to His Troops. BEFORE THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND, 1776. HE time is now near at hand, which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness, from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of a brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or to die. Our own, our country's honor, calls upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion; and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us, then, rely on the goodness of our cause, and the aid of the Supreme Being, in whose hands victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble actions. The eyes of all our countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the tyranny meditated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a freeman contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth. Liberty, property, life and honor are all at stake; upon your courage and conduct rest the hopes of our bleeding and insulted country; our wives, children and parents expect safety from us only; and they have every reason to believe that Heaven will crown with success so just a cause. The enemy will endeavor to intimidate by show and appearance; but remember, they have been repulsed on various occasions by a few brave Americans. Their cause is bad— their men are conscious of it; and, if opposed with firmness and coolness on their first onset, with our advantage of works and knowledge of the ground, the victory is most assuredly ours. Every good soldier will be silent and attentive-wait for orders-and reserve his fire until he is sure of doing execution. L' Now or Never. ISTEN, young heroes, your country is calling! You whom the fathers made free and defended, You whose fair heritage spotless descended, Leave not your children a birthright of shame! Stay not for questions while Freedom stands gasping! Brief the lips' meeting be, swift the hands' clasping— Break from the arms that would fondly caress you! Never or now! cries the blood of a nation Poured on the turf where the red rose should bloom! MOTHER of a mighty race, The elder dames, thy haughty peers, And taunts of scorn they join thy name. For on thy cheeks the glow is spread Is bright as thine own sunny sky. Ay, let them rail, those haughty ones, Its life between thee and the foe. America. They know not, in their hate and pride, Spring, like thine oaks, by hill and glen; By thy lone rivers of the West; And where the ocean border foams. There's freedom at thy gates, and rest For the starved laborer toil and bread. Power, at thy bounds, Stops, and calls back his baffled hounds. O fair young mother! on thy brow Drop strength and riches at thy feet. Thine eye, with every coming hour, Upon their lips the taunt shall die! -William Cullen Bryant. Address at the Dedication of Gettysburg Cemetery. OURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here firmly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, and that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. -Abraham Lincoln. |