CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BEQUEST 
 
 JAMES McCALL 
 
 Class of 1885 
 
 1944 
 
E649 .B88 0me " Unlveral,y Librar y 
 F m5?iiu l S™5 l «' s tomb to Mt - MacGregor 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 030 921 732 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030921732 
 
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GENERAL GRANT'S TOMB. 
 
FROM 
 
 Grant'sTomb to Mt. MacGregor 
 
 PATRIOTIC POEMS AND ADDRESSES 
 ALONG THE HUDSON 
 
 BY 
 
 WALLACE . ^RUCE 
 
 COLLECTED AND ARRANGED 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN D. ROSS, LL.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A CLUSTER OF POETS," "SCOTTISH POETS 
 
 IN AMERICA," "SKETCHES ON RANDOM 
 
 SUBJECTS," ETC. 
 
 BRYANT LITERARY UNION, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
Copyright, 1897, by 
 Bryant Literary Union. 
 
 PRESS OF A. V. HAIGHT. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Preface. 
 
 At Grant's Tomb, .... 7 
 
 Bend Low, ...... 9 
 
 The Flag, ..... 12 
 
 At the Grave o£ General Dix. 
 
 Decoration Day, . . . . .17 
 
 Academy of Music, New York. 
 
 The Story of a Pension, ... 20 
 
 Yonkers. 
 
 American Characteristics, . . . .23 
 
 Tarrytown. 
 
 The Power of National Song, . . 28 
 
 Haverstraw. 
 
 Tribute to Lincoln, . . ... -32 
 
 Peekskill. 
 
 YORKTOWN, ..... 36 
 
 Before an Address at West Point. 
 
 The Long Drama,. . . . . .40 
 
 Centennial at Newburgh. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The Forest Ballot, .... 48 
 
 Fishkill. 
 
 A Royal Route, . . . . -51 
 
 Poughkeepsie. 
 
 Love of Country, . . . . 56 
 
 Poughkeepsie. 
 
 Our Nation Forever, . . . .60 
 
 Rondcmt. 
 
 On Guard, ..... 62 
 
 Tivoli. 
 
 Our Prayer To-Day, . . , .66 
 
 Saugerties. 
 
 "Veterans,'' ..... 69 
 
 Hudson. 
 
 Parson Allen's Ride, . . . .74 
 
 Albany. 
 
 The Course of Freedom, ... 78 
 
 Troy. 
 
 The Candle Parade, . .80 
 
 Saratoga Springs. 
 
 The Silent Soldier, • ... 94 
 
 Mount MacGregor. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 For many years it has been my custom 
 to make clippings of Addresses and Poems 
 delivered from time to time by our orators 
 and poets, and among these to cherish elo- 
 quent selections and graceful incidents of 
 Wallace Bruce. 
 
 His recent verses ' ' Bend Low, " warmly 
 received and widely copied throughout the 
 entire country, suggested to me the publi- 
 cation in convenient form of the following 
 popular poems and prose extracts which I 
 have preserved from his various patriotic 
 utterances along the Hudson. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In response to this idea I was gratified 
 to receive his permission to arrange the 
 same in consecutive order of towns and 
 cities where they have been delivered, thereby 
 attaining pleasant companionship through 
 the beautiful valley he so much loves, and 
 where he has won golden opinions, from the 
 Island of Manhattan to Mount MacGregor at 
 Saratoga. 
 
 JOHN D. ROSS. 
 
AT GRANTS TOMB. 
 
 [From the Christian Advocate.} 
 
 With the departure of the President the 
 multitude of spectators began to melt away, 
 but the long column still continued to move past 
 the tomb, and it was not until the sun was 
 about to set behind the New Jersey hills that 
 the end of the splendid pageant disappeared 
 down the almost deserted drive, and the 
 tomb with its precious dust was enshrouded 
 in the silence of the approaching night. The 
 spirit of the occasion is fittingly characterized 
 in a poem written by Wallace Bruce, and 
 read by him the evening before the dedication 
 at a meeting of the U. S. Grant Post of the 
 Grand Army of the Republic. 
 
Those stars are there in setting blue, 
 Because you answered to the call; 
 
 We bring no eulogy to you — 
 You honor us — -you won it all. 
 
BEND LOW. 
 
 Dedicated to The Grant Post, Brooklyn, N. Y., whose 
 
 Guard of Honor stood sentry around 
 
 the General's Grave. 
 
 Bend low beside the Soldier's grave, 
 
 His ashes lift with reverent hand, 
 Hark to the voice again that gave 
 
 To Liberty supreme command! 
 Bend low, brave comrades of the past, 
 
 Your garlands strew with moistened eyes, 
 While angel fingers fondly cast 
 
 Sweet amaranths from waiting skies! 
 9 
 
BEND LOW. 
 
 Bend low ! The wbrld respondeth now 
 
 To echoes from (^e far away; 
 Columbia, with un<gj[\*ered brow, 
 
 A heartfelt offering brings to-day. 
 Bend low as veteran lips renew 
 
 The glow and throb q£ burning years; 
 A people pass in long review 
 
 To pay the homage of their tears. 
 
 Bend low! O'er yonder Palisades 
 
 The darkling shadows gently creep; 
 Bend low while gathering twilight fades 
 
 And starry pickets guard his sleep; 
 His tomb the Nation's heart for aye 
 
 Reflecting Freedom's fairest beam, 
 As morning blue and evening gray 
 
 Become the sentries of his dream. 
 10 
 
BEND LOW. 
 
 Bend low beneath that message fraught 
 
 With prophecy to all the world: — 
 " Let us have Peace," divinely wrought 
 
 In bannered folds of love unfurled; 
 His glory as the centuries wide, 
 
 His honor bright as sunlit seas, 
 His lullaby the Hudson tide, 
 
 His requiem the whispering breeze. 
 
 ii 
 
THE FLAG. 
 
 AT THE GRAVE OF GEN. DIX. 
 
 Decoration Day Tribute at Trinity Cemetery, 
 near Washington Heights. 
 
 Dedicated to the John A. Dix Post. 
 
 The only factor in the integral of God's sov- 
 ereignty is the individual; the only factor in the 
 multiple of this great nation is the unit. There 
 were nineteen families in the Mayflower — an indi- 
 visible number. There were thirteen stripes and 
 thirteen stars in the old flag, indivisible from its 
 birth. If any man individually wishes to secede, 
 he can come and go at his pleasure. Blackstone 
 defines liberty as the right of locomotion; but no 
 man or body of men can walk off with twenty 
 square feet of the sacred soil of old Virginia or 
 12 
 
THE FLAG. 
 
 a quarter of a school district in Massachusetts. 
 That question has been decided once and forever. 
 
 The serpent of State sovereignty that found its 
 way into the Paradise of our new Republic, and 
 coiled itself Laocoonlike around the limbs of the 
 young nation, has been consigned to a deeper Pan- 
 demoniun than dreamed of by Dante or Milton. 
 
 The power and supremacy of the flag have been 
 established — the enduring symbol of the nation's 
 authority; and I have great respect for the 
 home-rearing of that little boy who, when asked 
 in Sunday-School, which was the best verse in the 
 Bible, replied, " If any man attempts to haul down 
 the American flag shoot him on the spot." His 
 home-training for American citizenship had not 
 been neglected, and his Apocryphal verse, printed 
 in bold type, would not injure a leaf of any 
 volume of Holy Writ. 
 
 You remember how General Dix, who had been 
 Secretary of War only eleven days, sent out that 
 
 13 
 
THE FLAG. 
 
 glorious message, the first to thrill the Northern 
 heart. In that sentence, the flag became America ! 
 Ten thousand men might have been shot down in 
 the streets of cities in revolt, and some excuse 
 been devised to cover the crime; but when the 
 Flag was assailed, the people of the North came 
 like a great avalanche, increasing as it swept, until 
 two million brave men went to the front in the 
 cause of Liberty. 
 
 We stand here to-day, men and women of a 
 great Republic, crowned with the greatest free- 
 dom. Do we know how to appreciate its value ? 
 Some of you here gathered know what it cost. 
 Count it not in the cold figures of arithmetic 
 or in the value of the individual man in the 
 world's commerce. 
 
 By the vacant chairs at so many firesides, by 
 the privations, by the heart agony, by the sleep- 
 less nights and long vigils, by the deeds and 
 sufferings of heroic women, by the tears of mother, 
 
 14 
 
THE FLAG. 
 
 wife and sister, by the bowed head of the gray- 
 haired man from whom went forth the joy and 
 support of his declining years, by the great army 
 of martyrs, by the brave women who laid down 
 their lives in fever hospitals, and in the presence 
 of that God who listens to the cry of the raven, 
 ay, " caters, providentially for the sparrow,'' tell 
 me, if you can, the price of yonder symbol ? 
 
 The offerings that we bring fade away and perish, 
 but the glory you won is immortal. No wonder 
 in the midst of these Providences that the whole 
 land, from the pines of Maine to the forests of the 
 Sierras, on days like these, wakes to the reveille 
 of the morning stars, and brings its offerings to the 
 dead soldiers until night stations her starry pickets 
 above their graves. 
 
 Brave boys are they! gone at their country's 
 call! How the old songs come back, and eyes 
 grow dim. Their hands are waiting to clasp yours 
 as of old, and their lips to ask what of the Great 
 
 15 
 
THE FLAG. 
 
 Republic for which they died. As one by one 
 you go to join the heroic throng, gathering for the 
 last great muster, take this message, " We have one 
 country, one people, free and united, from gulf to 
 lake, from sea to sea." 
 
 16 
 
DECORATION DAY. 
 
 At the Academy of Music, New York. 
 
 We deck to-day each soldier's grave, 
 We come with offerings pure and white 
 
 To bind the brows of those who gave 
 Their all to keep our honor bright. 
 
 We cannot pay the debt we owe; 
 
 They gave their lives that we might live ; 
 Our warmest words fall far below 
 
 The worship that we fain would give. 
 
 O country! fairest of the free; 
 
 Columbia! — name forever blest; 
 O lost "Atlantis " of the sea ! 
 
 Securely anchored in the West; 
 
 17 
 
DECORA TION DA Y. 
 
 Unfold the flag their hands have borne ! 
 
 The shreds of many a well -fought field; 
 The stripes alone are rent and torn, 
 
 The stars are there, our sacred shield. 
 
 Those stars are ours because they died, 
 The blue is dearer for their sake, 
 
 Who sleep on many a green hill -side, 
 In ranks that nevermore will break. 
 
 For well they wore the color true 
 That holds our constellation fair, 
 
 And evermore the " Boys in Blue " 
 Shall have a day of rest and prayer. 
 
 Yes, martyred heroes of the free ! 
 
 We kneel beside your mounds and pray 
 That God our nation's guard may be 
 
 And comrade's hope from day to day. 
 
 18 
 
DECORA TION DA Y. 
 
 day baptized in blood and tears! 
 
 The blood was theirs, the tears are ours ; 
 And children's children through the years 
 
 Shall strew their graves with sweetest flowers. 
 
 "And May -day garlands all in bloom 
 Will quicken other verse than mine, 
 And decorate the soldier's tomb 
 
 From Southern palm to Northern pine. 
 
 19 
 
THE STORY OF A PENSION. 
 Decoration Day Address at Yonkers. 
 
 A few years ago a woman came to the United 
 States Consulate at Edinburgh. She said while she 
 was a lassie, and working at a mill in Galashiels, 
 there came a soldier one day wearing a blue coat 
 with brass buttons, who had many incidents to 
 narrate of the hardships and heroisms of our civil 
 war. She had read the story of Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin, and knew it by heart; she could recite 
 the poetry of Whittier, which she thought chimed 
 so sweetly with the songs of Robert Burns. He 
 told the story of his life and won her. 
 
 They lived happily in Edinburgh, until finally, 
 from sickness contracted in the war he applied 
 to the American Government for a pension. For 
 20 
 
THE STORY OF A PENSION. 
 
 four years he waited, as the papers came back 
 again and again with new questions, till at last 
 he lay down for two years on a sick bed. His 
 wife and oldest daughter went forth and worked 
 for twenty cents a day, and brought home what 
 they could for the poor, sick sufferer. The doc-, 
 tor at last told him that his end was near, and 
 he said, " Doctor, I have little to give you, 
 except the gun by my bedside." The kind physician 
 said, " I don't want it ; it is my business, you know, 
 to heal wounds, not to make them, and I will not 
 charge you anything for my attention." The wife 
 spoke up and said, "We will keep the gun for the 
 poor laddie." The next day, when they turned 
 down the coverlid for the last time, they found he 
 had placed the gun by his side, holding it lovingly 
 against his heart. 
 
 So she came and asked for her pension; she 
 had a right to it as the widow of an old soldier. 
 When at last it arrived she said with tears in her 
 21 
 
THE STORY OF A PENSION. 
 
 eyes, "Oh, if Johnnie could have had it before 
 he died." I asked, "Where is he buried; can we 
 go there on Decoration Day ? " And she said, 
 "It is in a Potter's- Field ; four others have already 
 been buried above him, and it is unmarked." I 
 said to her, " If I live to go to America, I. .will 
 find sixty men who will give me $100 each; and 
 we will have in the midst of old Edinburgh a plot 
 of ground for the Scottish - American soldiers." 
 I went before the Town Council of Edinburgh 
 and they granted me a site near the Monu- 
 ment of the People dedicated to personal free- 
 dom. I had an American sculptor design a statue 
 of " Lincoln Freeing the Slave," to commemorate 
 their deeds, and carved thereon his immortal sen- 
 tence, dear to every heart: "To preserve the Jewel 
 of Liberty in the Framework of Freedom." 
 
 22 
 
AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 An Address at Tarrytown. 
 
 The principal traits of the American are straight- 
 forwardness, self-reliance, and readiness to meet 
 emergencies. In a new country like ours people 
 are not given to overmuch ceremony. They have 
 the good old custom of going across lots; ..they 
 are impatient of fences and old forms; they take 
 the nearest way. 
 
 When the authorities of Alexandria forbade the 
 American captain to take down the obelisk, which 
 had been presented to New York by the Khedive 
 of Egypt, he simply wrapped the American flag 
 around it and told his men to proceed. The stripes 
 of that flag were not the sort of red tape that the 
 worthy officials of Alexandria were accustomed to, 
 
 23 
 
AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 but no man dared say him nay. That readiness of 
 action revealed his ancestry. 
 
 When a certain general, less noted for victories 
 than delays, telegraphed to President Lincoln, " I 
 have captured one hundred cows. What shall I 
 do with them?" the answer consisted of just two 
 words — "milk them." The midnight dispatch of 
 Anthony Wayne to General Washington read: 
 " Stony Point, two o'clock A. M. Dear General, 
 the American flag waves here. Mad Anthony." 
 A dispatch from General Putnam read : " Nathan 
 Palmer was taken as a spy, tried as a spy, and will 
 be hanged as a spy. P. S. — He is hanged." When 
 John Hancock said to the delegates assembled 
 at Philadelphia to discuss the Declaration of 
 Independence, "Gentlemen, we must all hang 
 together." "Yes," said Franklin, "or we will all 
 hang separately." 
 
 It is sometimes observed that we have not yet 
 developed a distinctive American literature; but I 
 24 
 
AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 believe that no one denies the original flavor of 
 American humor. When a gentleman from Duluth 
 told the English traveler that England was a very 
 good country, but we could put the whole of 
 it into Lake Superior without raising the tide, 
 no one could accuse him of plagiarism. When a 
 group of gentlemen on shipboard were discussing 
 the merits of Vesuvius, and one of the party said, 
 " Bring over your Vesuvius, and we will turn on 
 Niagara Falls and put it out," it was unnecessary 
 to say that the speaker was an American. In a 
 word, there is no cynicism about American humor, 
 but exaggeration, a sense of room and assurance, 
 qualities naturally belonging to a great country, 
 unfenced, untilled, and of boundless resources. 
 
 We too often regard the American Revolution as 
 the initial point of our national life ; but we must 
 not forget that the great men of the Revolution 
 were the outgrowth of fifty years of self-reliance. 
 They were the descendants of men reared in hard- 
 
 25 
 
AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 ship, of men who carried the Psalms in one 
 hand and the musket in the other. That band 
 of patriots who signed the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence did not spring up by enchantment. 
 That handful of Puritan acorns, shook by the 
 hand of oppression from the topmost bough of 
 the tree of English liberty, deep-rooted on the 
 banks of Runnymede, shipped without bill of 
 lading in the Mayflower, dropped in the rocky 
 soil of New England, neglected and uncared 
 for, became in a century and a half full grown 
 oaks. 
 
 If ever in the world's history the words "native 
 mettle " could be applied to any band of men 
 it belongs to the men of 1776. Every field 
 from Bunker Hill to Saratoga and Yorktown 
 revealed the courage and endurance of Saxon 
 blood. Ay, more, in our naval conflicts and in 
 that great struggle, in the memory of many here 
 gathered, we recognize the qualities which in- 
 26 
 
AMERICAN CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 spired the witty toast of the young American 
 fifty years ago in Paris, who, after the rose, the 
 lily, the thistle and the shamrock had been 
 extolled, while his own land had been reduced to 
 an afterthought, responded : 
 
 " The lily will fade and its leaves decay, 
 The rose from its stem dissever, 
 The thistle and shamrock will pass away, 
 But the stars shall shine forever." 
 
 27 
 
THE POWER OF NATIONAL SONG. 
 
 From an Address at Haver straw. 
 
 The draught of kindness may sparkle with joy- 
 but there are tears in the bottom of the cup. Yes, 
 to all of us it speaks of the past ; for many who 
 were with us, as it were but yesterday, are now 
 separated by oceans, some by death. Some who 
 went forth with energy and in the strength of man- 
 hood to plough furrows of thought through the 
 world, are now sleeping in furrows ploughed deep 
 by cannon-balls — the loved and the lost of our 
 " auld lang syne." But in these lines they all are 
 remembered, although many sleep without a monu- 
 ment along that tract of country where the fierce 
 fire of battle succeeded in welding a broken union. 
 Songs which thus find a response in the universal 
 
 28 
 
THE PO WER OF NA TIONAL SONG. 
 
 heart of humanity, like those which stir the blood 
 of a nation, have an influence which cannot be 
 measured. Mechanism will give you the force of 
 an engine, the strength of a bridge, or the tension 
 of a cable, but it is impossible to determine the 
 power of an idea which takes hold of the heart 
 and rises to the lips of a nation ; and old Fletcher 
 said well, " Let me write the songs of a people, 
 and I care not who make her laws." In the 
 Reformation of Germany, the songs of the Father- 
 land went hand in hand with the theses of Luther 
 nailed upon the Cathedral doors at Wittenberg. 
 When Knox was driven from his country, the 
 poems of Lyndsay of the Mount were working 
 out his deliverance and the cause of truth. The 
 last Napoleon prohibited years ago the singing of 
 the " Marseillaise Hymn " in the streets of Paris. 
 He knew if that song were raised in the cause 
 of truth, it were mightier than an army with ban- 
 ners. He was literally afraid of that grand stir- 
 29 
 
THE POWER OF NATIONAL SONG. 
 
 ring chorus, " Marchons, Marchez ! " and when I 
 heard it in the dark summer of 1870, as it rose 
 up from the heart of an excited nation bursting 
 its fetters of law, and saw the soldiery kneel as 
 they sang it around the tri-colored flag which had 
 led to so many fields of victory, I thought that if 
 France were only united, rallying around that 
 song, she could withstand the Powers of Europe. 
 Yes, from the invasion of William of Normandy, 
 when Taillifer the minstrel advanced before the 
 army animating them with songs of Charlemagne 
 and Roland, and then rushed among the opposing 
 ranks and perished, until the yesterday of 
 
 "Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching," 
 
 the influence of national songs cannot be meas- 
 ured. The poets who have written them may 
 have died in poverty or in exile. They may 
 have suffered martyrdom at the stake or at the 
 bar of public opinion; but their lines live, the 
 
 30 
 
THE POWER OF NATIONAL SONG. 
 
 monument of their exile and the crown of their 
 martyrdom. You may bum the writer, but the 
 fire only melts the links of tyranny. A true poet 
 cannot be a slave. He feels deeply, and liberty 
 is his inspiration. He knows there is an honor 
 more sacred than law, a natural veneration more* 
 effective than enacted statutes. National honor 
 is stronger than political bulwarks. This is the 
 boundary of a Divine Providence. Political bul- 
 warks are often the mere mud-dykes of a genera- 
 tion. 
 
 3 1 
 
TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN. 
 Address at Peeksktll. 
 
 We have no primogeniture of greatness, but what 
 we might term a natural succession or heredity of 
 wit. Not only that wit which says the right thing 
 at the right time, but also does the right thing at 
 the right moment. I take it that Abraham Lin- 
 coln is the natural descendant of Benjamin Frank- 
 lin. They both were emphatically the architects of 
 their own fortunes. They sprang from the com- 
 mon mass, inheriting and retaining the qualities of 
 the people — hospitality, fidelity, sympathy and com- 
 mon sense. The sayings of each are national 
 proverbs. " It is'nt safe to swap horses while 
 crossing the stream " was the closing sentence of 
 Lincoln's address accepting renomination, and that 
 one sentence was worth a hundred thousand cam- 
 paign speeches. 
 
 32 
 
TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN. 
 
 On his way to assist at the dedication of the 
 National Cemetery and Monument at Gettysburg 
 he unfolded a newspaper, and, pointing to five long 
 closely printed columns, said to a friend : " Here 
 is the speech of Edward Everett, which he is ta 
 deliver to-day, already in type." Then, taking from 
 his vest-pocket a torn yellow official envelope, 
 written with pencil, and marked with erasures, he 
 said: "Here is mine." The speech of the great 
 Massachusett's orator has become the property of 
 mouldy scrap-books, but the pencilled sentences on 
 the torn yellow envelope will live in the American 
 heart as long as the stars shine in the sky. "It 
 is not what we say here, but what they did here." 
 His detractors called him rude and uncouth, and 
 the London newspapers, forsooth, said that we 
 had elected a mountebank for President. 
 
 In the age of Pericles two statues were made 
 by rival sculptors. The one that received the ap- 
 proval of the people was to be placed on high 
 
 33 
 
TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN. 
 
 in their temple. The statues were unveiled; one 
 received the plaudits, the other the derision of the 
 assembly. " Lift it to its place," said the unsuc- 
 cessful sculptor. The approved statue was lifted; 
 the lines of beauty were all gone. " Lift mine." 
 As the great statue reached the lofty pedestal a 
 shout burst from the excited throng. So seemed 
 the rugged qualities of that noble man lifted to 
 the proudest pinnacle of a nation's love. 
 
 When I think of the detractors of men like 
 Lincoln I am somehow reminded of Mark Twain's 
 description of the Sphynx in his " Innocence 
 Abroad;" that grand image of retrospection and 
 memory, gazing out over the ocean of time, a 
 great statue, sixty feet high, one hundred and 
 twenty-five feet long, carved out of a solid block 
 of stone, harder than iron. He heard, you re- 
 member, the clink of a hammer, and there, way 
 up on the cheek of the Sphynx, saw something re- 
 sembling a wart. " It seems," he said, " that one 
 
 34 
 
TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN. 
 
 of our well-meaning reptiles, a relic hunter, had 
 crawled up there, and was trying to break off a 
 specimen; but the great image, unconscious of 
 the small insect that was fretting the granite in 
 vain, was contemplating the ages as calmly as 
 ever." Lincoln's detractors and critics are all gon«. 
 The lines in Punch over the plain coffin at 
 Springfield confessed at last that he had lived to 
 shame them from their sneer: 
 
 " Our shallow judgments we have learned to rue, 
 Noting how to occasion's height he rose : 
 How his quaint wit made home truth seem more true, 
 How iron-like his temper grew by blows." 
 
 Ay, a tower has been erected to his memory in 
 London, a monument in Edinburgh. The streets 
 of Italian cities have been named in his honor; 
 his portrait hangs in the humble cottages of the 
 Swiss mountaineer, and his name is affectionately 
 remembered in the hearts of the oppressed all 
 over the world. 
 
 35 
 
YORKTOWN. 
 
 Prefacing a Lecture at West Point. 
 To the Memory of John Bruce, Sergeant at Lexington. 
 
 We stand to-day on Yorktown field, 
 Where Britain laid her banner down, 
 
 Where tyranny to freedom kneeled, 
 And dropped the jewels from her crown. 
 
 We gather here from every land, 
 
 With offerings brought from near and far, 
 
 Like men of old — the Eastern band — 
 Led onward by the Western star. 
 
 We meet around an humble shrine, 
 We mark the spot with graven stone, 
 
 A trophy to that Right Divine 
 
 Whereby to manhood we have grown. 
 36 
 
YORKTOWN. 
 
 Our hundred years of youth have passed, 
 With deeds that prove the Nation brave, 
 
 And strife and jealousy at last 
 Lie buried in one common grave. 
 
 One flag floats over all the land, 
 One sentiment thrills every heart; 
 
 No foreign foe, no factious band, 
 The land we love shall ever part. 
 
 The past is sure, the future waits; 
 
 The years with enterprise are rife; 
 With hope the century celebrates 
 
 The birthday of a nation's life. 
 
 We measure time by glorious deeds; 
 
 All history is simply this : 
 It skips the years; it merely reads 
 
 From Marathon to Salamis. 
 
 37 
 
YORKTO WN. 
 
 We gather courage from the past, 
 And from heroic pages learn: 
 
 Triumphant freedom finds at last 
 A Runnymede or Bannockburn. 
 
 Ay, every struggle to be free 
 
 'Gainst courtly craft and regal might, 
 
 Preserves the line of liberty, 
 
 And keeps her armor clean and bright. 
 
 The sceptre and the diadem 
 
 In ev'ry land shall lose their power, 
 
 Freedom's the only flawless gem, 
 And equal rights the people's dower. 
 
 The diamond in the monarch's crown 
 Is crystallized from peasants' tears ; 
 
 The purple of his royal gown 
 Betokens blood of bitter years. 
 
 38 
 
YORKTO WN. 
 
 The scaffold stairs which Sidney trod 
 Led from the dungeon to the sky; 
 
 The tyrant sways a feeble rod 
 
 When patriots dare to do and die. 
 
 Grander the manger than the throne; 
 
 " Free hearts and hands," the poet sings ; 
 Freedom and faith and these alone, 
 
 "The grace of God," but not of kings. 
 
 39 
 
THE LONG DRAMA. 
 
 Read at the Centennial of the Disbanding of the 
 American Army, Newburgh, N. Y. 
 
 With banners bright, with roll of drums, 
 With pride and pomp and civic state, 
 
 A nation, born of courage, comes 
 The closing act to celebrate. 
 
 We've traced the drama page by page 
 From Lexington to Yorktown field ; 
 
 The curtain drops upon the stage, 
 The century's book to-day is sealed. 
 
 A cycle grand — with wonders fraught 
 That triumph over time and space — 
 
 In woven steel its dreams are wrought, 
 The nations whisper face to face. 
 40 
 
THE LONG DRAMA. 
 
 But in the proud and onward march 
 We halt an hour for dress parade, 
 
 Remembering that fair freedom's arch 
 Springs from the base our fathers laid. 
 
 With cheeks aglow with patriot fire 
 They pass in long review again; 
 
 We grasp the hand of noble sire 
 
 Who made two words of " Noblemen." 
 
 In silence now the tattered band — 
 Heroes in homespun worn and gray — 
 
 Around the old Headquarters stand, 
 As in that dark, uncertain day. 
 
 That low -roofed dwelling shelters still 
 The phantom tenants of the past; 
 
 Each garret beam, each oaken sill, 
 Treasures and holds their memories fast. 
 
 4i 
 
THE LONG DRAMA. 
 
 Ay, humble walls! the manger -birth 
 To emphasize this truth was given: 
 
 The noblest deeds are nearest earth, 
 The lowliest roofs are nearest heaven. 
 
 We hear the anthem once again — 
 
 " No king but God ! " — to guide our way, 
 
 Like that of old — " Good -will to men " — 
 Unto the shrine where freedom lay. 
 
 One window looking toward the east; 
 
 Seven doors wide-open every side; 
 That room revered proclaims at least 
 
 An invitation free and wide. 
 
 Wayne, Putnam, Knox, and Heath are there; 
 
 Steuben, proud Prussia's honored son ; 
 Brave Lafayette from France the fair, 
 
 And, chief of all, our Washington. 
 42 
 
THE LONG DRAMA. 
 
 Serene and calm in peril's hour, 
 An honest man without pretence, 
 
 He stands supreme to teach the power 
 And brilliancy of common - sense. 
 
 Alike disdaining fraud and art, 
 
 He blended love with stern command; 
 He bore his country in his heart, 
 
 He held his army by the hand. 
 
 Hush! carping critic, read aright 
 The record of his fair renown: 
 
 A leader by diviner right 
 
 Than he who wore the British crown. 
 
 With silvered locks and eyes grown dim, 
 As victory's sun proclaimed the morn, 
 
 He pushed aside the diadem 
 With stern rebuke and patriot scorn. 
 
 43 
 
THE LONG DRAMA. 
 
 He quells the half -paid mutineers, 
 And binds them closer to the cause; 
 
 His presence turns their wrath to tears, 
 Their muttered threats to loud applause. 
 
 The great republic had its birth 
 
 That hour beneath the army's wing, 
 
 Whose leader taught by native worth 
 The man is grander than the king. 
 
 The stars on that bright azure field, 
 Which proudly wave o'er land and sea, 
 
 Were fitly taken from his shield 
 To be our common heraldry. 
 
 We need no trappings worn and old, 
 No courtly lineage to invoke, 
 
 No tinselled plate, but solid gold, 
 No thin veneer, but heart of oak. 
 
 44 
 
THE LONG DRAMA. 
 
 No aping after foreign ways 
 
 Becomes a son of noble sire; 
 Columbia wins the sweetest praise 
 
 When clad in simple, plain attire. 
 
 In science,, poesy, and art, 
 
 We ask the best the world can give ; 
 
 We feel the throb of Britain's heart, 
 
 And will while Burns and Shakespeare live. 
 
 But, oh! the nation is too great 
 To borrow emptiness and pride: 
 
 The queenly Hudson wears in state 
 Her robes with native pigments dyed. 
 
 October lifts with colors bright 
 Its mountain canvas to the sky; 
 
 The crimson trees, aglow with light, 
 Unto our banners wave reply. 
 
 45 
 
THE LONG DRAMA. 
 
 Like Horeb's bush the leaves repeat 
 From lips of flame with glory crowned : 
 
 "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, 
 The place they trod is holy ground." 
 
 O fairest stream beneath the sun! 
 
 Thy Highland portal was the key 
 Which force and treason wellnigh won, 
 
 Like that of famed Thermopylae. 
 
 That ridge along our eastern coast, 
 From Carolina to the Sound, 
 
 Opposed its front to Britain's host, 
 
 And heroes at each pass were found — 
 
 A vast primeval palisade, 
 
 With bastions bold and wooded crest, 
 A bulwark strong by nature made 
 
 To guard the valley of the West. 
 46 
 
THE LONG DRAMA. 
 
 Along its heights the beacons gleamed; 
 
 It formed the nation's battle -line, 
 Firm as the rocks and cliffs where dreamed 
 
 The soldier- seers of Palestine. 
 
 These hills shall keep their memory sure, 
 The blocks we rear shall fall away, 
 
 The mountain fastnesses endure, 
 
 And speak their glorious deeds for aye. 
 
 And oh ! while morning's golden urn 
 Pours amber light o'er purple brim, 
 
 And rosy peaks like rubies burn 
 Around the emerald valley's rim, 
 
 So long preserve our hearthstone warm! 
 
 Our reverence, O God, increase! 
 And let the glad centennials form 
 
 One long millennial of peace. 
 
 47 
 
THE FOREST BALLOT. 
 
 Before an Address at Fishkill. 
 
 When the trees their ballots cast, 
 And the forests all are polled, 
 
 Which will win the suffrage vast — 
 Crimson leaves or leaves of gold? 
 
 In the radiant autumn days, 
 
 Silently on hill and wold, 
 Through the amber-tinted haze, 
 
 Fall the leaves of red and gold — 
 
 Leaves that keep the cruel stain 
 Of the blood of brothers dead, 
 
 Symbols of a nation's pain: 
 
 Count them sadly — leaves of red; 
 48 
 
THE FOREST BALLOT. 
 
 Leaves that hold the mellow light 
 Of the stars on banner-fold, 
 
 Symbols of enduring right: 
 
 Count them gladly — leaves of gold ; 
 
 Emblems those of dire defeat, 
 Emblems these of courage bold; 
 
 Which will triumph, which is meet — 
 Crimson leaves or leaves of gold? 
 
 By the record of the past, 
 By that story proudly told, 
 
 By fair freedom won at last, 
 Crimson yields to leaves of gold. 
 
 By the faith that conquers doubt, 
 Right will triumph as of old. 
 
 See! The red is fading out, 
 Clearer glow the tints of gold. 
 
 49 
 
THE FOREST BALLOT. 
 
 So, when all the leaves are cast, 
 And the forest vote is polled, 
 
 With a suffrage wide and vast 
 Victory crowns the leaves of gold. 
 
 5° 
 
A ROYAL ROUTE. 
 
 FROM GETTYSBURG TO ATLANTA — FROM ATLANTA TO 
 THE SEA. 
 
 Reunion of the One Hundred and Fiftieth 
 New York Regiment at Poughkeepsie. 
 
 Dedicated to its first Colonel, Gen. John H. Ketcham. 
 
 Gay-bannered streets a greeting speak, 
 And standards bright with storied name; 
 
 While moistened eye and burning cheek 
 Unite proud welcome to proclaim. 
 
 But waving plumes are symbols cold 
 To voice what Dutchess here would say — 
 
 And speech is silver, silence gold, 
 When memories o'er our heartstrings play. 
 
 5i 
 
A ROYAL ROUTE. 
 
 The same rich glory floods the land, 
 
 October flings her colors out, 
 As when your noble, loyal band 
 
 Went forth upon its royal route; 
 
 To bear yon flag, which loved ones gave, 
 Through forest, plain, and mountains vast; 
 
 Our father's heritage to save, 
 To keep fair freedom's title fast — 
 
 At Gettysburg, where fate and fame 
 
 Three days the wreath of victory tossed 
 
 From hill to hill through battery-flame, 
 From line to line where courage crossed — 
 
 In Tennessee, where Lookout Height 
 With thunder-tone revealed the law,' 
 
 A cloud-wreathed Sinai, clad with might — 
 Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw — 
 
 5 2 
 
A ROYAL ROUTE. 
 
 And nameless fields where valor led, 
 As Hooker blazed his southward way, 
 
 Till Allatoona heard the tread 
 
 Of Sherman's troops that came to stay. 
 
 I've walked those rugged mountain ways 
 Where echoes sleep 'mid tranquil joys; 
 
 Have waked the hills with notes of praise, 
 And touched my hat to " Ketcham's Boys." 
 
 Have marked the fields whereon they stood, 
 With pride for Dutchess, tried and true, 
 
 And deemed each spot a holy rood, 
 Made sacred by the Boys in Blue. 
 
 O grand old Twentieth Army Corps! 
 
 Our hearts go out to thee and thine — 
 Seven thousand reached Atlanta's door 
 
 Of seventeen thousand men in line. 
 
 53 
 
A ROYAL ROUTE. 
 
 Dark, cruel days! Ten thousand lost! 
 
 Engulfed in war's encrimsoned tide; 
 A fearful price! but worth the cost — 
 
 The land is free for which they died. 
 
 Then who would grudge to men like these 
 The pensioned pittance of a crust ? 
 
 Strike down yon flag that flaunts the breeze, 
 And all your wealth is glittering dust. 
 
 A land with honor gone is naught, 
 The people want no huckstering cry; 
 
 Too rich the realm for which they fought 
 To let her brave defenders die. 
 
 The wires are cut. The army swings 
 
 Through seas of pine from moorings free; 
 
 With Slocum now the Twentieth sings 
 The March through Georgia to the Sea. 
 54 
 
A ROYAL ROUTE. 
 
 And so the deep, proud chorus swells 
 From north to south through all the land- 
 
 A symphony of golden bells 
 
 Swung by the Great Director's hand; 
 
 Till every state from east to west 
 
 Takes up Columbia's glorious chant — 
 
 Faith, freedom, hope, and truth abreast — 
 With grand crescendo under Grant. 
 
 55 
 
LOVE OF COUNTRY. 
 
 DECORATION DAY SERVICE. 
 At Hamilton Post Poughkeepsie. 
 
 The safeguard of a government is not in its 
 armories. It is rather in the love of country. 
 We have a right to love our city and its institu- 
 tions; a right to be proud of our colleges and 
 schools; a right to speak of the taste and cul- 
 ture of this, the fair city of the Empire State. 
 
 You, gentlemen, in taking the name of- your 
 Post did not have to go outside of this city to 
 find one of the noblest, one of the worthiest 
 names in our American History — the name of 
 Hamilton. It was fitting, Veterans of Poughkeep- 
 sie, ay, for many reasons, that you should have 
 
 56 
 
LOVE OF COUNTRY. 
 
 selected this name. It not only takes us back 
 to the day when the Constitution of the United 
 States was ratified in the city of Poughkeepsie 
 by the argument and zeal of Alexander Hamil- 
 ton, but it binds together three generations of 
 heroes. You take your name from the heroic 
 grandson, who rests to-day beneath the roses 
 and the tears of a nation's gratitude; but the 
 middle link of that illustrious chain, at once son 
 and sire, still remains to us — our respected citi- 
 zen, Hon. Philip Hamilton, who was with us in 
 our procession, and stood uncovered during these 
 impressive exercises. It is indeed our privilege to 
 love Poughkeepsie, and refer with pride to her 
 illustrious names. 
 
 We have a right to revere the County of 
 Dutchess; to love the great State of New York, 
 appropriately titled the Empire State, with its well 
 deserved motto "Excelsior;" we have a right to 
 be proud of a commonwealth which contains within 
 
 57 
 
LOVE OF COUNTRY. 
 
 its borders one -tenth of the population of this ■ 
 great land. Look at its glorious framework and 
 picture: 
 
 The Hudson, not only punctuated with beauty, 
 but also with historic names and dramatic inci- 
 dents from the sea to the wilderness.. Behold 
 Stony Point and West Point and Newburgh; 
 Stillwater, Saratoga and Bemis Heights; Lake 
 George, with its history and its scenery, and 
 Lake Champlain, with its blended record of 1776 
 and of 1 81 2. We have on the north the Thou- 
 sand Islands and the Rapids of the St. Lawrence, 
 and Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie, whose waters 
 seem to speak the power and grandeur of the 
 "Great West," in the falls of Niagara; to the 
 south we find the valley of the Wyoming and 
 the beautiful Delaware Water Gap. What a grand 
 framework it is ! Well, now for the picture. We 
 see the Catskills and the Adirondacks, and Otsego 
 Lake, where Cooper lived, and the placid valley 
 
 58 
 
LOVE OF COUNTRY. 
 
 "where the Mohawk gently glides;" we see Wat- 
 kins Glen, the beautiful cascades around the 
 modern Ithaca, the falls of the Genesee, and the 
 garden land about Rochester. . Ay, this is a grand 
 State. We have a right to love it with its majestic 
 framework and superb picture. But how idle to 
 stop here, when we think of the grand extent of 
 this glorious country united forever in the bonds 
 of peace. I recall the speech of a great orator, 
 Dr. Chapin, at Hudson, N. Y., during the days 
 of the Civil War. He referred to the silver lakes 
 of the north, the rockbound Atlantic, the golden 
 sands of the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico. 
 Then stepping forward from the lecture desk, 
 he exclaimed: "This grand and glorious wedding 
 ring of our Fathers, with the tomb of Washing- 
 ton for a signet." 
 
 59 
 
OUR NATION FOREVER. 
 Preluding an Address at Rondout. 
 
 Ring out to the stars the glad chorus! 
 
 Let bells in sweet melody chime; 
 Ring out to the sky bending o'er us 
 
 The chant of a nation sublime : 
 One land with a history glorious! 
 One God and one faith all victorious. 
 
 The songs of the camp-fires are blended, 
 The North and the South are no more; 
 
 The conflict forever is ended, 
 
 From the lakes to the palm -girded shore. 
 
 One people united forever 
 
 In hope greets the promising years; 
 No discord again can dissever 
 
 A Union cemented by tears. 
 60 
 
OUR NATION FOREVER. 
 
 The past will retain but one story — 
 A record of courage and love; 
 
 The future shall cherish one glory, 
 While the stars shine responsive above. 
 
 With emotions of pride and of sorrow, 
 Bring roses and lilies to- day ; 
 
 In the dawn of the nation's to-morrow 
 We garland the Blue and the Gray. 
 
 One land with a history glorious! 
 
 One God and one faith all victorious! 
 
 61 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH NEW YORK 
 REGIMENT AT GETTYSBURG. 
 
 Recited at a Sabbath Decoration Day Address 
 at Tivoli. 
 
 We can not consecrate this field, 
 
 Or hallow ground where heroes stood; 
 
 Thus spoke the man whose words have sealed 
 Our lips in Freedom's Holy Rood. 
 
 We can not dedicate. Too well 
 
 Our Lincoln knew the Temple's cost, 
 
 He heard the nation's anthem swell: 
 Your deeds survive, our words are lost. 
 62 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 The brave men living and the dead, 
 Who wrought the epic of the free, 
 
 Have consecrated here, he said, 
 The land, the world, to liberty. 
 
 And now amid the whirling years 
 That punctuate the swift decades, 
 
 You come with blended joy and tears, 
 In peace beneath the gathering shades, 
 
 To contemplate from hill to hill 
 
 The line you held those bitter days, 
 
 Again to feel your pulses thrill, 
 
 Once more to take your meed of praise ; 
 
 With noble monument to mark 
 
 The spot where Dutchess, tried and true, 
 Stood by the faith when skies were dark, 
 
 And stars were blotted from the blue; 
 
 63 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 A picket outpost here for aye 
 
 With watchword of the Hudson born, 
 
 To note the moonlight shadows play, 
 To greet with joy the early morn ; 
 
 A silent sentinel to keep 
 
 Its post along the quiet line; 
 
 A Bannockburn, where brothers sleep — 
 A Waterloo, where roses twine. 
 
 Ay, Gettysburg, thy name at last 
 Proclaims the triumph of the race; 
 
 'Tis here the future greets the past, 
 And faith asserts her crowning grace. 
 
 No other battle-field like thine, 
 
 Where love joins hands across the way, 
 
 One flag, one land, a sacred shrine 
 Alike unto the Blue and Gray. 
 64 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 Then rear the graven stone with pride 
 Along the line where freedom's van 
 
 Proclaims to generations wide 
 The final victory of man: 
 
 That love and law will reign supreme 
 Where'er the starry banner waves, 
 
 When stones that now in sunlight gleam 
 Crumble to dust above their graves. 
 
 65 
 
OUR PRAYER TO-DAY. 
 
 Memorial Address at Saugerttes. 
 
 Our prayer to-day is that these scenes may 
 not be re-enacted. Some years ago on one of our 
 River steamboats an old gentleman remarked, 
 as we were passing under Kosciusko's monument, 
 "It has been fifty years since I have seen the 
 Hudson River. In the year 1839 I graduated 
 at West Point." He said, " I live in Tennessee, 
 and I felt it my duty to fight on the side of the 
 South. One day, near New Orleans, I was posted 
 behind some cotton bales as a breastwork, firing 
 at a Union ship." He told me that his son had 
 graduated from the Naval Academy, and that 
 the son fought under the stars and stripes. He 
 said, "Many times that day I touched the cannon 
 66 
 
OUR PRAYER TO-DAY. 
 
 which sent havoc into that vessel, and finally, at 
 night-fall, after the battle was over, I received a 
 message that my son was lying dead upon its 
 deck;" and he added: "I always thought, and I 
 feel to-day, that it was my own hand that sent 
 my son into eternity." Then, with tears flowing 
 down his cheeks, he exclaimed : " My friend, never 
 fire at the stars and stripes, and never forget your 
 country." 
 
 I see some here who know pages of this bitter 
 history by heart; some to whom this day is not 
 an idle form; some who dropped tears with the 
 flowers that they placed upon their comrades' 
 graves; some who in the long nights have out- 
 watched the stars; some who have heard the 
 roll-call of names which knew no response save 
 the sobs of some distant fire -side. I see men 
 here who were in the fire of battle and looked 
 death in the face, with calm heroism, where 
 leaden dice seemed hurled by the hand of fate- — 
 67 
 
OUR PRAYER TO-DAY. 
 
 men such as Cromwell spoke of — men who could 
 think with their bayonets, and more than that, 
 men who could pray, and there are no words 
 that can add any glory or any tribute to what 
 they have done. 
 
 I stood but yesterday before another assem- 
 blage like this. I saw similar flags to these which 
 are about me now — flags all faded and fretted 
 out, with the names of Gettysburg and Antietam 
 upon them, and the long roll of battlefields that 
 we know by heart; and I saw that the stripes 
 had all been worn away and only the stars were 
 left, and I felt that the flags symbolized the long 
 struggle and the grand result. 
 
 68 
 
" VETERANS." 
 
 Re-union of the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth 
 
 Regiment New York State Volunteers 
 
 at Hudson. 
 
 Dedicated to the memory of Col. Cowles. 
 
 One word on our lips, and but one to-day; 
 
 One word in our hearts as we gather here, 
 Enshrined in our annals to live for aye, 
 
 To freedom and freemen forever dear. 
 
 But how shall we utter with reverence meet 
 That word where emotions are more than speech, 
 
 When martyred heroes comrades greet, 
 
 And voices from Heaven's high ramparts reach! 
 69 
 
" VETERANS." 
 
 Go, speak it in whispers where daisies free 
 On a million mounds with dews are wet! 
 
 Herald with trumpet from sea to sea 
 The word that a nation will not forget! 
 
 Attune it to music that thrills the soul 
 With old-time fervor, remembered yet ! 
 
 The smoke-stained banner again unroll! 
 The stars in their courses will not forget. 
 
 Engrave it in marble of purest white; 
 
 In granite columns its letters set; 
 Ay, trace it with pencils of living light 
 
 The blue-domed heavens will not forget. 
 
 These walls proclaim it in glory; behold! 
 
 A loyal welcome to noble sons; 
 Through floral lips to brothers bold 
 
 One word, and that word — "Veterans." 
 70 
 
" VETERANS." 
 
 We bow before it; our all is there — 
 
 Our flag, our freedom, our land and pride, 
 
 Our country's fame and promise fair — 
 The world's great future with outlook wide. 
 
 For that banner is more than painted gauze; 
 
 It voices the hopes of a thousand years — 
 A registered charter of sacred laws, 
 
 Full covenant purchased by blood and tears. 
 
 You know its value, survivors few — 
 Three hundred now of a thousand then, 
 
 Who marched from our camp in proud review; 
 The star-dotted roll-call read again. 
 
 Absent! Sleeping at Camp Parapet, 
 On Chalmette field and at Quarantine, 
 
 With salt-driven spray the roster is wet, 
 At Port Hudson's dismal and wild ravine — 
 
 7i 
 
"VETERANS." 
 
 Where brave men spoke with bated breath, 
 As brothers fell in that murderous blast; 
 
 While fate shook leaden dice with death, 
 And cheeks grew pale as the die was cast. 
 
 A black steed dashes across the plain, 
 With foam-flecked bridle streaming free, 
 
 A gallant and noble soldier slain, 
 
 Your leader through centuries yet to be. 
 
 Who, fighting, "fell with face to the foe," 
 And sent it a message to sorrowing souls — 
 
 Imperial sentence! with Spartan glow, 
 
 On record immortal — our brave Colonel Cowles. 
 
 Ah, well we recall the silent street, 
 
 When that horse was led to the hero's grave, 
 With army-cloak on saddle-seat, 
 
 And the flag that he gave his life to save. 
 72 
 
"VETERANS." 
 
 And well we remember your record, boys, 
 
 In the years that followed when days were dark, 
 
 As through the Red Sea with steady poise 
 Our citizen soldiers bore Liberty's ark. 
 
 And children's children your deeds will relate, 
 And cherish your memories ever dear, 
 
 The gallant One Hundred and Twenty-eight, 
 Which in days of peril answered — " Here ! " 
 
 Ay, long as the stately Hudson flows, 
 Or the Catskills sentinel-duty keep, 
 
 While Roeleffe Jansen singing goes, 
 
 And binds our counties in crystal sweep; 
 
 Till the fame of our fathers has faded away, 
 Till the stars of the old dear banner set, 
 
 Till the gold of the sunlight is sprinkled with gray — 
 Columbia and Dutchess will not forget. 
 
 73 
 
PARSON ALLEN'S RIDE. 
 Before address in the old Tweddle Hall, Albany. 
 
 The " Catamount Tavern " is lively to-night, 
 The boys of Vermont and New Hampshire are 
 here, 
 
 All drawn up in line in the lingering light, 
 
 To greet Parson Allen with shout and with cheer. 
 
 Over mountain and valley, from Pittsfield Green, 
 Through the driving rain of that August day, 
 
 The "Flock" marched on with martial mien, 
 And the Parson rode in his "one-horse shay." 
 
 " Three cheers for old Berkshire ! " the General said, 
 As the boys of New England drew up face to face. 
 
 " Baum bids us a breakfast to-morrow to spread, 
 And the Parson is here to say us the 'grace.'" 
 
 74 
 
PARSON ALLEN'S RIDE. 
 
 " The lads who are with me have come here to fight, 
 And we know of no grace," was the Parson's reply, 
 
 " Save the name of Jehovah, our country and right, 
 Which your own Ethan Allen pronounced at 
 Fort Ti." 
 
 " To-morrow," said Stark, " there'll be fighting to do, 
 If you think you can wait for the morning light ; 
 
 And, Parson, I'll conquer the British with you, 
 Or Molly Stark sleeps a widow at night." 
 
 What the Parson dreamed in that Bennington camp 
 Neither Yankee nor Prophet would dare to guess ; 
 
 A vision, perhaps, of the King David stamp, 
 
 With a mixture of Cromwell and good Queen Bess. 
 
 But we know the result of that glorious day, 
 And the victory won ere the night came down; 
 
 How Warner charged in the bitter fray 
 With Rossiter, Hobart, and old John Brown ! 
 
 75 
 
PARSON ALLEN'S RIDE. 
 
 And how, in a lull of the three -hours' fight, 
 The Parson harangued the Tory line 
 
 As he stood on a stump, with his musket bright, 
 And sprinkled his texts with the powder fine: 
 
 " The sword of the Lord is our battle cry, 
 A refuge sure in the hour of need," 
 
 And freedom and faith can never die 
 Is article first of the Puritan creed. 
 
 "Perhaps the 'occasion' was rather rash," 
 He remarked to his comrades after the rout; 
 
 " For behind a bush I saw a flash, 
 But I fired that way and put it out." 
 
 And many the sayings, eccentric and queer, 
 Repeated and sung through the whole country- 
 side, 
 
 And quoted in Berkshire for many a year, 
 Of the Pittsfield march and the Parson's ride. 
 
 76 
 
PARSON ALLEN'S RIDE. 
 
 All honor to Stark and his resolute men, 
 
 To the Green Mountain Boys all honor and 
 praise, 
 
 While with shout and with cheer we welcome again 
 The Parson who rode in his one-horse chaise. 
 
 77 
 
THE COURSE OF FREEDOM. 
 
 Peroration of Address on "The Hudson," 
 Delivered at Troy. 
 
 How the sublime and beautiful in the material 
 world are interwoven with the political and moral 
 development of a people ! We can not live in the 
 midst of majestic scenery without feeling its in- 
 spiration in our hearts, inciting us to something 
 nobler and better. 
 
 It is impossible to be slaves where all nature 
 speaks of liberty. In tracing the progress of 
 freedom from the time when the Reformation 
 electrified Europe, we see her first footsteps, like 
 the approach of morning, upon the mountains and 
 along the banks of rivers! 
 
 We see her light illumine the clear streams 
 of Switzerland, we hear her voice from mountain- 
 walled Geneva; till almost exiled from Europe, she 
 
 78 
 
THE COURSE OF FREEDOM. 
 
 takes up the words of Knox, " Give me Scotland 
 or I die;" and in the deep fastnesses of her hills, 
 and in the deeper hearts of a people who drank 
 in liberty with the very air they breathed, awaited 
 patiently the hour of proclaiming to the world the 
 right of private judgment, both in religion and* 
 in politics; ever teaching that noble sentiment of 
 loyalty to conviction, which led Charles the First 
 through the windows of Whitehall upon the scaf- 
 fold, and banished the House of Stuart from the 
 Throne of England. 
 
 She crosses the ocean and lays here the founda- 
 tion of a Republic, where civil and religious govern- 
 ment becomes civil and religious liberty, and the 
 Divine Right of Kings becomes the Divine Rights 
 of Men. And here along our fair rivers a nobler 
 Freedom shall ever nourish, and along this the 
 fairest stream will gather Poetry from its Legends, 
 Hope from its History, and a Consciousness of 
 God from its Beauty. 
 
 79 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 Eighteenth Reunion of the Society of the Army of the 
 Potomac at Saratoga Springs. 
 
 [After the Army of the Potomac had returned from the capture 
 of Richmond to Alexandria, a single company, each man with 
 a lighted candle in his gun, marched one night throughout the 
 camps in sportive procession. Regiments and brigades caught 
 the spirit, until fifty thousand candles were immediately con- 
 verted into weird-like battalions wheeling and dancing along 
 the hillsides in every direction.] 
 
 Once again Potomac's army answers to the mus- 
 ter-roll; 
 
 Once again the old-time music thrills the soldier's 
 heart and soul. 
 
 Rank on rank, with cheer and gladness, rally at 
 the bugle -call 
 
 On the field of Saratoga, underneath its mountain- 
 wall, 
 
 80 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 Where MacGregor's evening shadows fall upon the 
 
 crystal tide, 
 At the gate -way of the cottage where the nation's 
 
 hero died; 
 Where the streams in gentle music still our father's 
 
 requiem chant, 
 And the pine, the oak, the maple, and the laurel 
 
 echo — Grant. 
 
 Name revered, that clasps great rivers evermore in 
 
 loving thrall: 
 Queenly Hudson, fair Potomac, Mississippi — king 
 
 of all; 
 Rivers three, that bind one nation from the Gulf 
 
 to Northern lakes, 
 From the Rockies to Virginia, where the loud 
 
 Atlantic breaks; 
 Arms entwined and interlocking, holding in their 
 
 wide embrace 
 
 81 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 Sweeping hills and lordly mountains of the Ap- 
 palachian race; 
 
 Fertile fields and rolling prairies with their wealth 
 of floral bloom, 
 
 Plucked and borne by loving fingers to the loyal 
 Logan's tomb. 
 
 Fruit of gold in silver pictures — waving fields by 
 rivers framed; 
 
 States discordant reunited, love and land and flag 
 reclaimed : 
 
 Fruit of gold — a century's harvest, in war's reap- 
 ing rudely shorn — 
 
 Garnered heroes, named and nameless, swift on 
 fiery chariots borne. 
 
 Rest in peace by stately rivers, martyred soldiers 
 of the free ! 
 
 Rest, brave captain, at our threshold, where the 
 Hudson meets the sea! 
 82 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 While Mount Vernon's sacred portal sentinels 
 
 Potomac's waves, 
 Mississippi sends her greetings to the streams that 
 
 guard their graves. 
 
 Fair Potomac! dear Potomac! at thy name what 
 
 memories throng! 
 Deeds of heroism blazoned in a nation's art and 
 
 song. 
 Onward sweeps the steady column to the sound 
 
 of fife and drum; 
 Solid phalanx, proud battalion; see the sun- 
 browned veterans come. 
 Forward, to the touch of elbow, as of old in 
 
 long review: 
 Missing comrades take their places in the ranks 
 
 that wear the blue. 
 " On to Richmond ! " " On to Richmond ! " swells 
 
 the old familiar cry. 
 
 83 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 " On this line " — you know the context — comes 
 the soldier's brief reply. 
 
 Southward now, with ranks concentring, reads the 
 
 order of the day, 
 Wilderness and Spottsylvania marking halts along 
 
 the way, 
 Where the trees are mowed with bullets — brothers 
 
 battling hand to hand — 
 Blue and Gray, with kindred courage worthy of 
 
 one fatherland; 
 Both alike in silent trenches guarding now the 
 
 peaceful scene, 
 Waiting till the morn's reveille wakes the camps 
 
 of waving green. 
 Southward still across North Anna, thirty miles 
 
 from Rapidan; 
 Southward, by the left flank marching, gallant 
 
 Hancock in the van. 
 
 84 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 How each message, fraught with glory, taught a 
 listening land the names 
 
 Of the Old Dominion rivers, from Potomac to 
 the James! 
 
 How you kept the " Dailies " busy with their to- 
 pographic maps — 
 
 One eye on the Shenandoah, one on Sherman's 
 shoulder - straps ! 
 
 Sheridan in rapid orbit, like a genuine son of 
 Mars, 
 
 Sherman on the outer circle, Saturn -like among- 
 the stars; 
 
 Here and there a warlike comet — dauntless Cus- 
 ter, dashing "Kilj " 
 
 But they had to "get up Early" to compete 
 with "Little Phil." 
 
 Who can paint that panorama, clear and perfect 
 in detail? 
 
 85 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 Who can trace the telling bullets in that storm 
 
 of leaden hail ? 
 Who can twine a fitting garland for each dear 
 
 heroic name, 
 Or untwist the strands of glory in the cable of 
 
 our fame? 
 This sufficeth and abideth — every thread is firm 
 
 and true; 
 Homespun texture, double woven, colors fast — 
 
 red, white, and blue; 
 Knotted well at Appomattox, tied to keep the 
 
 threads in place, 
 Never more to be unravelled in the nation's on- 
 ward race. 
 
 Homeward now with flaunting banners, every 
 heart with triumph thrills; 
 
 Homeward to the old-time quarters on the Al- 
 exandria hills. 
 
 86 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 Once again a thousand camp-fires on the wide 
 
 horizon glow; 
 Once again the canvas city spreads its tents of 
 
 drifted snow; 
 All the long, fierce conflict over, day of Jubilee 
 
 is here; 
 No more longing, no more waiting — give us, 
 
 boys, a song of cheer. 
 Hail the bright -illumined city, with its crowning 
 
 dome of white ! 
 Hail Columbia! hail Potomac! All the land is 
 
 free to-night! 
 
 What is that along the hill -side? See a hundred 
 
 twinkling points 
 Starting up and gliding slowly, serpent -like with 
 
 glittering joints. 
 Mark the sweeping curves of beauty as in waving 
 
 lines it breaks, 
 
 87 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 Holding all the wide encampment in its folds of 
 fiery flakes — 
 
 Solid squares and ranks of twinkle putting phan- 
 tasy to shame; 
 
 Phosphorous billows in the darkness gemmed with 
 drifting dots of flame; 
 
 Ghostly folds of sable serge -cloth trimmed with 
 glittering golden braid; 
 
 Spirit -lights of weird battalions dancing all in 
 masquerade. 
 
 You remember well the sombre silence of that 
 
 vision vast; 
 As a background for the pageant, all the sky was 
 
 overcast. 
 Then upon the stillness breaking came the old 
 
 familiar airs, 
 Choral links of home and camp-fire treasured in 
 
 a nation's prayers — 
 88 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 " Home, Sweet Home '' and " John Brown's Body," 
 
 "Dixie -Land" and " Old Camp -ground," 
 Swinging symphonies commingled in one bright 
 
 bouquet of sound. 
 Then from out the ruddy petals "Forward!" 
 
 came the order shrill, 
 And the visioned scene was mortal — 'twas the 
 
 famous candle - drill. 
 
 No one knew just how it started, how that 
 strange parade began, 
 
 Emblem of the nation's genius and the individual 
 man; 
 
 Waiting not lieutenant's order, epaulette or crim- 
 son sash, 
 
 Blending in the ready impulse Saxon grit and 
 Gaelic dash. 
 
 Here, perhaps, a lighted candle in a musket, 
 just for play, 
 
 89 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 Then a score, platoon, battalion — all the scene is 
 
 under way, 
 And the chorus, proudly swelling, stirs the heart 
 
 of every corps, 
 " We are coming, Father Abram, fifty thousand 
 
 candles more." 
 
 We are coming, we are coming, as of old the 
 
 army came — 
 " Wide Awakes " and " Little Giants," in one 
 
 lava stream of flame, 
 Knowing but one common duty when the banner 
 
 was defied, 
 Stirred in every nerve and fibre when the gallant 
 
 Ellsworth died. 
 Steadfast Lincoln, Douglas greets you with his 
 
 followers tried and true: 
 "Keep for aye the nation's honor, all the stars 
 
 within the blue.'' 
 
 90 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 Noble hero! generous rival! both, alas, too soon 
 
 to fall. 
 Lincoln ! still the Douglas greets you, " Dinna 
 
 ye hear the slogan call ? " 
 
 Not more quickly sprang that pageant from the 
 
 silence of the night 
 Than- the army of the people panoplied in free- 
 dom's might; 
 Not more swiftly Concord's message flashed from 
 
 Boston's Old South spire; 
 Not more speedily the answer to Clan Alpine's 
 
 Cross of Fire ; 
 Not more ready Roderick's followers springing at 
 
 the whistle shrill, 
 Than the loyal yeoman soldiers starting up from 
 
 plain and hill. 
 Not more quickly Highland claymores sank in 
 
 copse and heathered glen 
 
 9i 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 Than the grand old army veterans back into the 
 land again. 
 
 " One from many," reads our motto, wider, 
 
 deeper than before — 
 Not of states but individuals — '?We, the people," 
 
 evermore ! 
 Tell me not of servile soldiers who for king or 
 
 sovereign died, 
 Here a million kings and sovereigns marched to 
 
 victory side by side; 
 Brothers all in sacred compact, file and captain 
 
 equal born; 
 Comrade answering to comrade, waiting for the 
 
 promised morn. 
 Far and wide each gleaming taper, "like a good 
 
 deed," shines abroad, 
 Till the naming heights of freedom manifest the 
 
 will of God. 
 
 92 
 
THE CANDLE PARADE. 
 
 But the hill -side's fading beauty tells us the 
 
 parade is o'er, 
 Like the embers of the camp-fire dying out for- 
 
 evermore. 
 Only now in distant windows gleams the candle 
 
 through the night, 
 And the camp-fires change to firesides, with their 
 
 cheery visions bright 
 Streaming out into the darkness past the lane 
 
 and wicket- gate, 
 Where the mother, wife, and sister, all the loved 
 
 and loving, wait. 
 Glorious land to live or die for! Let Columbia 
 
 bend her knee 
 As she grants her proudest honors to the soldiers 
 
 of the free. 
 
 93 
 
THE SILENT SOLDIER. 
 At Mount MacGregor. 
 
 [When Grant was dying, a ray of sunlight through the half- 
 closed shutters of his room fell upon Lincoln's picture, leaving 
 the General's portrait, which hung beside it, in deep shadow. 
 After lingering for a moment upon the brow of the martyred 
 President, it passed, at the instant of death, and played upon 
 the portrait of the great General.] 
 
 From gulf to lake, from sea to sea, 
 The land is draped — a nation weeps; 
 
 And o'er the bier bows reverently, 
 Whereon the silent soldier sleeps. 
 
 The hill-top silhouetted in light 
 
 Salutes the east with outlook wide — 
 
 Its name shall live in memory bright — 
 The Mount MacGregor, where he died. 
 
 94 
 
THE SILENT SOLDIER. 
 
 A monument to stand for aye, 
 
 In summer's bloom, in winter's snows; 
 
 A shrine where men shall come to pray, 
 While at its base the Hudson flows. 
 
 A humble room, the light burns low; 
 
 The morning breaks on distant hill; 
 The failing pulse is beating slow; 
 
 The group is motionless and still. 
 
 Two portraits hang upon the wall, 
 Two kindred pictures side by side — 
 
 Statesman and soldier, loved by all — 
 Lincoln and Grant, Columbia's pride. 
 
 A single ray through lattice streams, 
 And breaks in rainbow colors there; 
 
 On Lincoln's brow a glory gleams 
 As wife and children kneel in prayer. 
 
 95 
 
THE SILENT SOLDIER. 
 
 A halo round the martyr's head, 
 It lights the sad and solemn room; 
 
 Above the living and the dead 
 
 The soldier's portrait hangs in gloom — 
 
 In shadow one, and one in light : 
 But look! the pencil-ray has passed, 
 
 And on the hero's picture bright 
 The golden sunlight rests at last. 
 
 And so, throughout the coming years, 
 On both the morning beam shall, play, 
 
 When the long night of bitter tears 
 Has melted in the light away. 
 
 96