e&&& 
 
 Mh IjiMf of Ik iSmuliful 
 
 HKLIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 ENOSINIAN SOCIETY 
 
 
 COLUMBIAN COLLEGE, 
 
 I 
 
 OTIS T. MASOU, .A. . UVL" 
 
 JUNE 22, 1863. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 MoGILL & WITHEROW, PRWTEKS AND STEREOTYPE};.-. 
 
 1863. 
 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
<st 
 
 i)[je ©jwif of ifo IBihiuJ 
 
 M* 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 ENOSINIAN SOCIETY 
 
 7)^9 
 
 - TV, 
 
 OTIS T. 'MASO IST, .A. . &£ 
 
 JUNE 22, 1863. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 MoGILL & WIT&EROW, PRINTERS AND 8TEREOTYPER5 
 
 1863. 
 
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 College Hill, November 12, 1863. 
 Dear Sin : 
 
 At a meeting of the Enosinian Society held November 7th, 1863, it was 
 unanimously resolved, that the thanks of the Society be tendered you for the 
 very beautiful poem recited before them on the occasion of their Annual 
 Celebration in June last ; also, that a copy of your poem be requested for 
 publication. 
 
 In accordance with the above, the undersigned were appointed a committee 
 to notify you of the action of the Society. 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servants, 
 
 THOMAS S. SAMSON, 
 REGINALD FENDALL, 
 W. F. C. MORSELL, 
 
 Committee. 
 Otis T. Mason, A. M. 
 
 Washington, December 1, 1863. 
 T. S. Samson and Gentlemen of the Committee : 
 
 You have kindly asked a copy of the poem delivered before your Society 
 in June last, for publication. As it is the property of the Society, I cheer- 
 fully submit it to your disposal. 
 Truly yours, &c, 
 
 0. T. MASON. 
 
For here's a paper written in his hand, 
 A halting sonnet of his own pure brain. 
 
 r Nothing, Act V, Sc. 4. 
 
?.#im. 
 
 Kind Enosinians ! at your gracious call 
 
 We come, to render at the shrine of song 
 
 Our lowly offering. While from trench and wall 
 
 The war cry drives the tide of death along, 
 
 And men are tossing on this troubled sea 
 
 Of blood ; while women wail and orphans shriek, 
 
 And famine mocks, and the reality 
 
 Has stripped the pageantry from war, there speaks 
 
 A voice familiar, higher than the storm, 
 
 Whose sweetness faileth not in every hour 
 
 To calm the troubled waters of alarm, 
 
 By the sweet magic of its wondrous power, — 
 
 The seraph's voice, that rules the Beautiful, 
 
 Whose inspiration, in diverse degree, 
 
 Thrills all her children meek and dutiful, 
 
 Thrilleth the highest, thrilleth you and me. 
 
 To-night we come, as they were wont of old, 
 
 Whose songs resounding stirred the blue iEgean, 
 
 To add one humble tribute, not of gold, 
 
 Or incense, or the sanguinary paean ; 
 
 Content are we to pluck the lowliest flower, 
 
 To deck her altar for the passing hour. 
 
 One shrine there is where every spirit pays 
 Its homage, bowing lowlily, and feels 
 A living vigor there, prepared to raise 
 It from the altar stool whereon it kneels ; 
 
Whereat the babe holds out its tiny arms ; 
 Whose radiance lightens up the school boys' face ; 
 That gleams auroral o'er the maiden's charms 
 Where love inhales its energy and grace ; 
 Where sturdy manhood locked in the embrace 
 Of lovely womanhood its light implores ; 
 Where age, o'erfurrowed by times truest trace, 
 Some long-chased, flying phantom shape adores ; 
 Where each fond mother immolates her pride ; 
 And each proud father heeds some call of faith 
 To sacrifice a darling son, to guide 
 The hand of fortune, empty flattering wraith; 
 Where every mourner goes to dry his tears ; 
 Where each sad heart some faint relief would find ; 
 Guilt hath a hope along the wrecking years, 
 To wear at last the misery from the mind; 
 Whence faith looks far, far up the starry dome, 
 As high in height as low her lowliness, 
 And waiteth.long for the blest hour to come, 
 Of full fruition, and of swift redress. 
 There's many a shrine, and many a triumph car 
 Worshipped before by all the giddy throng; 
 Yet that of Beauty hath more votaries far, 
 Than bear the echoing of their praise along. 
 
 Our lives are that, the mode of which is prayer 
 For strength in weakness, for the manly will 
 To face with courage, for a heart to bear 
 The judgments time shall pass and shall fulfill ; 
 But most of all a prayer that we may see 
 The unscanned Beauty of eternity. 
 
 Our wants are many, for the craving heart 
 Is ever hoping, e'er aspiring higher; 
 Nor lets one moment to th' Unknown depart, 
 It has not fraught with some intense desire. 
 Yet, could we shake the grqssness from the mind, 
 And more and more grow God-like, till the ear 
 Of our quick souls could catch the note that told 
 Man's deepest yearning and profoundest fear, 
 
9 
 
 Then could we stand mid-;dr while earth went round, 
 
 Uplifting as it rolled one general wail, 
 
 The tidal wave of sorrow; this one sound 
 
 Above the shoreless sea would most prevail : 
 
 Take knowledge, culture, every hot desire; 
 
 Give us of soul-stirred sorrow no surcease ; 
 
 Try us till tried in the refining fire, 
 
 But give, oh! give us, Beauty's smiling face. 
 
 Give us to feel that this is not the verge 
 
 Of hope, where mind and soul and spirit all 
 
 Conflict; and these enfolding forms but urge 
 
 The doom, the death, the fearful wreck of all. 
 
 Oh God ! thou art a mocker, and we crowned 
 
 Aright thy Christ with thorns ; His sacred feet 
 
 Were wearied, and the raging rabble bound 
 
 And crucified Him rightly ; it was meet, 
 
 If war, wetshod in gore, and widow's weeds, 
 
 And orphan tears, and starveling cries, and wail 
 
 Of the wild requiem over our misdeeds, 
 
 Go all unheeded — all be born to fail. 
 
 But naught shall fail, since Beauty's highest height 
 
 Is reached in Him, the source of all her light; 
 
 For, could the grave anoint with healing clay — 
 
 As Christ the man's born blind — our failing eyes, 
 
 Then, in life's river washed, they'd ope to see 
 
 Earth's brightest beacon. Faith, elate, would rise 
 
 First on the sight ; and with each human hope 
 
 Would — more than they that watch for morning — wait 
 
 For harmony ; each prescient heart would cope 
 
 With angel heralds, hurrying to her gate. 
 
 Thou, dearer far than life ! By the same faith 
 With which we trust The Life, The Truth, The Way, 
 Believe we, whatsoe'er our longing saith 
 Of thee, shall reach us in a brighter day. 
 E'en here, where social ties have bound in one 
 Speech, nations, empires, or the roving band ; 
 Where'er the light of Learning hath begun 
 To gleam, though ne'er so faintly, o'er a land, 
 
10 
 
 Some sacred shrine to thee they've singled out ; 
 Some mountain grotto, some secluded dell, 
 Where, all the noisy world barred safely out, 
 They might at times with thee in rapture dwell. 
 
 Thou sweet inspirer of the measured lay ! — 
 Who wert, when Paradise serenely slept, 
 A shadowy forecast of the yet to be 
 Developed purpose, all securely kept 
 In the ordaining mind of Him, who spake, 
 And each material and ethereal thing- 
 Became a word, the form articulate 
 Of His intention and predestining; 
 Who art thyself a word, interpreted 
 Creator, giving life to something dead — 
 Come ! heal our halting feet, our fainting hearts; 
 Teach us to keep sweet time to love's refrain ; 
 Crimson our pallid cheeks ; haste to impart 
 A lustre to our eyes, whose souls would fain 
 With thee now mount the ever-steepening way, 
 Down which thy sacred feet to us have trcd; 
 That we from thine own lips may learn thy lay : 
 Which, lisping o'er till learned, along the road 
 That skirts this lowland, when thy sun hath set 
 With all for which its genial beams were given, 
 We'll reach thy sphere, where sweeter chords than yet 
 We've heard shall sweep us through the gates of heaven. 
 We wait before thy gate for a reply 
 To Se*edrs question. What, what is truth ? 
 If we describe thee falsely, or deny 
 Thy truthful form, we beg thy light and ruth. 
 
 There was a time when not a glittering star 
 
 Went gently gliding in its restless round ; 
 
 When not an angel glory gleamed afar, 
 
 Or angel finger silence waked to sound ; 
 
 When God, existing free, unmanifest 
 
 Save in the mirror of his own deep love, 
 
 Sublimely pleased, sat silently and blest; 
 
 And this bright scene, this is the scheme he wove, 
 
11 
 
 Where formed He, first among the shining host, 
 The " Inspiration Angel," beauty-born, 
 Foreshadowing the glory of all time, 
 His minister to bear His praise along — 
 The herald of a prophet more sublime. 
 
 Before th' empyreal throne, lowly reclining, 
 
 And leaning on her hand her peerless head, 
 
 Intent she gazed about her, as divining 
 
 The mystery there, by her and all unread, 
 
 While the deep travail of his purposing 
 
 Brings forth the shape, and while he breathes upon 
 
 And adds the bold, distinctive surfacing 
 
 Of angel, seraph, satellite, or sun. 
 
 Then, stooping down to her, the fairest born 
 
 Of all the creatures of his spirit-realm, 
 
 Saw in her face the blush of Beauty's morn, 
 
 Parted her golden locks, and from the helm 
 
 Of his vast kingdom, pointed to a cloud 
 
 Peeriug afar, upon the very verge 
 
 Of the wide welkin, duskily endowed 
 
 With shape, from chaos merging to emerge. 
 
 There, daughter, shalt thou amplify thy soul, 
 
 Till, as the dew of morning, thy sweet breath 
 
 Suffusing all, thy crested wave shall roll 
 
 Its interripplings over life and death. 
 
 Bowing, the angel said "I will obey;" 
 
 And lightly skimmed adown th' ethereal main, 
 
 Followed along her shining embassy 
 
 By kindred voices in this sad refrain : 
 
 " We shall miss thee, sister spirit ! 
 
 Turned from those who here adore thee, 
 Though each smile you here inherit, 
 Trust us, there shall hover o'er thee. 
 
 " Demons curse thee, downward shrinking, 
 Tremble, dreading trouble pending, 
 Sorrow unto pain are linking, 
 Envious glances at thee sending. 
 
12 
 
 " Father loviDg, heart impressing 
 
 Spirit, Christ the Son endearing, 
 
 Kindred watch thee swift addressing 
 
 To the throne of thy appearing." 
 
 ^/ 
 
 And thus, innumerable cycles back 
 
 That mark the circling of the years around, 
 
 When this firm earth was but a- vapory tract, 
 
 To neither motion, law, nov season bound, 
 
 The angel of Imagination stood 
 
 Communing with her heart, and conning o'er 
 
 The far-off' compound interest of good 
 
 At last accruing on the nether shore, 
 
 Where, freed from our pent orbing round and round, 
 
 We'll catch the perfect music of the spheres, 
 
 And ever on a higher mission bound, 
 
 Shall burgeon out along the glowing years. 
 
 There in the crucible of time she wrought 
 
 The hills, " rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun," 
 
 Pressed down the valleys, smote the rocks enfraught 
 
 With prattling streamlets dancing as they run ; 
 
 There dashed the waves, that wore their barriers rife 
 
 With bays and seas pushed inward on the land ; 
 
 There veined the mountains with their precious life, 
 
 And gemmed the streamlets with their jewel sand; 
 
 Threw wide the windows of the firmament 
 
 To catch the twinkling of the golden stars ; 
 
 Spread her green sward ; evoked the infinite 
 
 Of loveliness apparent everywhere ; 
 
 There gave a dreamy azure to the air, 
 
 And fancy loosed to wanton with the clouds, 
 
 When nature reveled in her embryo year, 
 
 And vocal grandeur sang her praise aloud. 
 
 Those for all men. Some sacred shrines she marks 
 Within her temples, where her altars stand ; 
 Where each crowned priest from year to year enarks 
 The gems of love that sparkle from her hand ; 
 Eden the lovely, prologue to them all j 
 Ida, renowned for Beauty's victory ; 
 
13 
 
 Olympus, Jove's high thundering capitol ; 
 The vale of Tempe, where the muses stray ; 
 Sweet Helicon, where Phoebus struck his lyre ; 
 Dread Eleusis, the poet's mystery ; 
 Arcadia, home of harmoDy retired ; 
 Bright Athens, Pallas' famed consistory ; 
 The vine-clad hills where Virgil had his birth ; 
 The Switzer's home and valley, beauty-shrined ; 
 The stern Norse warrior's icy rugged earth ; 
 The cliffs of Albion, cradled in the brine ; 
 Columbia, chosen by the will of God 
 To bear the shout of liberty along ; 
 Nor last, the land by holier feet o'ertrod, 
 She gave to sacred heavenly-burdened song. 
 Thus garnished, back to Eden bowers she flew. 
 The tinkling bluebells heard aloft in heaven, 
 Stirred by her drapery that tripped the dew, 
 Cried list ! till he she wrought it for be given. 
 Ten thousand hovering angel voices sang : 
 
 Sister we have heard the tinkle 
 Of the bluebells, far above thee 
 
 In the skies ; — 
 Looked, and lo ! the matiu ingle 
 Was dissolved, again to mingle 
 
 Myriad dyes ; — 
 
 Heard a voice, " Come let us make him " 
 (Sweetly spake that voice above thee :) 
 
 " Of the dust. 
 In our image let us make him," 
 Saying, " Let earth's angel take him, 
 
 To her trust." 
 
 Now we come to see thee press him, 
 Press him as did He above thee, 
 
 To thy heart ; — 
 Come to see thee first caress him, 
 Come to hover o'er and bless him 
 
 For our part. 
 
14 
 
 The spirit of that song took life and shone 
 On every scope. In every sound outrang, 
 ' We wait, to exalt and garland o'er thy throne.' 
 
 There, like another God, did she enseize 
 
 The soul of him so like the Son of Man, 
 
 And seized his tongue, and from the bowed knees 
 
 Of humble faith, with influence that can 
 
 Move the dread arm that wields the universe, 
 
 Watching his ripening spirit, till one thought 
 
 Form of the outward, on the mind's reverse 
 
 Entablature was graven ; then she caught 
 
 The imagery, and audibly upon the air, 
 
 Straightway within the ear, the vocal frame 
 
 Set up, the bodying of the spirit there, 
 
 The words that lend us to the roll of fame. 
 
 Yet once again, her friendly aid applied 
 
 In Eden, when in sleep she lulls to rest 
 
 Her ward, till from his intersected side, 
 
 Eve leaps, all panoplied. Here she suppressed 
 
 The anticpuated word, the stern old root, 
 
 To form the richer, sweeter, gaylier dressed, 
 
 Prolific dialect of the graffed shoot 
 
 On the wild olive for delicious fruit. 
 
 Then to the pair. Image of God and form ! 
 Ye I must trust, as I would trust your God. 
 Trusted too far, hence all this loss and harm, 
 Hence hatred, sorrow, and the valley clod. 
 
 Sang she, " Sisters, see my love, 
 There's sorrow in his home to-night ; 
 My dream said he shall walk above, 
 His joy has taken flight. 
 
 " Will ye leave him naked now ? 
 His fall will cry aloud, for ye 
 May yet succeed to make him bow 
 Again the stubborn knee. 
 
 " Faith, with all thy sister train, 
 Sweet Hope, with every glittering ray, 
 
15 
 
 And Love, high hovering o'er the twain, 
 Will ye then away ?" 
 
 Thus mourned she, till their echoed back a choir 
 Of sounds uncertain, jarring in the air, 
 " We will — perhaps — at times we will, but higher, 
 Farewell ! forever farewell ! guilty pair." 
 But Love delaying took she by the hand, 
 And kneeling there before the fiery gate, 
 There came a voice, " Together ye'll remand 
 The humbled victim to a higher state. 
 The serpent's head the woman's seed shall bruise, 
 And slowly pressing on the brain of sin> 
 Shall grind him in his native dust, aud loose 
 The chain that binds her to that she hath been." 
 Then rising from the altar stool of earth, 
 They tripped from dewy morn till dusky even, 
 Along the devious way of woe and mirth, 
 That leads through beggary to a home in heaven. 
 
 Conscience has lost the way of righteousness ; 
 Keason but weakly binds to truthfulness ; 
 Will fails to hold the helm with steadiness ; 
 Fancy opposes wrong's unpleasantness 
 With nature's beauty ; but the tethered eye 
 Grows sick and wearies, seeing o'er and o'er. 
 The little bounded round of sweets that lie 
 For eye and ear of each, forces the door 
 Of our desires, that will not sate till all 
 The unscanned beauty of the dancing spheres 
 Commanded be to tend each spirit call, 
 And pour its music on our quickened ears. 
 All nature's beauty and her dissonance 
 Are but the plastic clay, from which she moulds 
 A statue of th' ethereal forms, which chance 
 Before her sentient fancy hath unrolled. 
 These are her magic wand, wherewith to ope 
 Love's gateway of her by-road to the soul 
 That ever felt a thrill of joy, or hope 
 Hath ever urged along to glory's goal. 
 
16 
 
 With it she touched the Child; the future man 
 
 Or woman full exemplified, appears 
 To comprehend th' importance of his span, 
 
 Or all the mother runs before the years. 
 
 She touched the Youth; and airy castles rise 
 To kiss the flecking of each floating cloud 
 
 Which charms the dust of labor from the eyes, 
 And hides the scull beneath a crimsoned shroud. 
 
 She touched the Maiden ; from her gleaming eye 
 Flashed out upon some heart the fatal shock 
 
 Of true heart lightning, rifting hopelessly 
 The citadel of love, till its base rock. 
 
 She touched the Mother ; — shall I touch a theme 
 Too sacred for th' archangel's fiery tongue ? — 
 
 Then gushed the fountain of earth's sweetest stream, 
 A mother's love. Oh stream, forever run. 
 
 She touched the Exile, far away he heard 
 The welcome warble of his mother-tongue, 
 
 Like the first warble of the welcome bird 
 
 That greets the spring when all around is young. 
 
 She touched the Chain that bound a righteous cause ; 
 
 To shake th' oppressor, as at Philippi, 
 Bidding her chosen abrogate his laws 
 
 Unrighteous, daring there to do or die. 
 
 She touched the Miser; and his jaundiced eye 
 Gave to the world the yellow hue of gold ; 
 
 Gilt was his head and heart ; to sell and buy 
 He'll risk his soul, till his last knell is knolled. 
 
 She touched the Tyrant; and the clanking chain 
 Were mellow music, matched with all the choirs 
 
 That harmonize in heaven's sweet refrain, 
 When all the saintly fingers sweep their lyres. 
 
3 
 
 I 
 
 She touched the Warrior ; and his nodding pluiue, 
 Dashed with the hue of cloud and blood and fire, 
 
 Brushed off' the hate of strife and sorrow's gloom, 
 And gentle fingers swept the flattering lyre. 
 
 She touched the Drunkard ; and the reeling wreck 
 Went down ingulfed in death's relentless sea, 
 
 Glad if these fiendish phantom shapes could deck 
 His life, and thrill him in eternity. 
 
 There's not a heart so rude she passeth by ; 
 
 The faintest life hath vigor lent of hope, 
 
 And ever and anou weaves gaylily 
 
 The flowers of fancy plucked on every slope. 
 
 Thus kindly deals with all ; with special ruth 
 
 She leads her chosen through still vales, and bj 
 
 Vauclusian fountains of unfading youth, 
 
 To plume their flight for immortality. 
 
 She taught the sculptor's chisel to evoke 
 
 From the cold marble, beauty everywhere 
 
 In myriad forms, until her crowning stroke, 
 
 A Venus or Apollo Belvidere, 
 
 Some architectural triumph have adorned. 
 
 Her monuments are seen uplifted high, 
 
 In pyramid and obelisk ; have formed 
 
 A bridge's eyebrow o'er a sparkling eye ; 
 
 Greet us in giant battlements four-square, 
 
 Against the foe who seeks to crush the laud, 
 
 Or graceful capitol, uprearing where 
 
 Apollo spreads his gift with liberal hand. 
 
 Resting from labor, as the maker soul 
 
 That breathed her being into anxious life, 
 
 She plants the high Acropolis, the goal 
 
 Of toil, and bares her sacrificial knife, 
 
 To offer up her temple. gift of elegance — 
 
 An architectural Sabbath to the heart, 
 
 Apart, and far above the dissonance 
 
 Of the rude clacking in the world's loud mart. 
 
 She prompts the soul that moves the hand that guides 
 The pencil, to impress the shadowing 
 
l: 
 
 Of the ideal, when its form resides 
 In all the synthesis of coloring. 
 
 Gives to each passion some key-note, to suit 
 The harmony that wakes it through the ear; 
 Then fills the void with music, till the mute 
 Spirit would dream the choral welkin near. 
 
 And yet more delicately touched, 
 
 The poet's mind, pure as Ilissus, couched 
 
 In fancy's dreamy verdure, where she hides 
 
 Her numerous offspring. Ever at her breath 
 
 They sally forth ; and being borne above 
 
 Upon the mist, that like a cloudy wreath 
 
 Is lifted by the genial beams of love, 
 
 She clothes them in the babbling of the stream 
 
 That sometimes trickles from a ruptured vein ; 
 
 Sometimes goes gently gliding as a dream ; 
 
 Sometimes leaps wildly down and purls again, 
 
 Just coping round the pebbles ; then at play 
 
 With the wild bluff, goes eddying round and round. 
 
 Thus run's the poet's brain from theme to theme; 
 
 Nought is too rugged or too sweet for sound, 
 
 From the blared bugle to the sunset gleam. 
 
 She leads him o'er the pastoral, and chants 
 
 Her Georgics to the rustic swain ; nay, lends 
 
 In rudest times to memory, if she wants 
 
 Her aid to eternize. Her genius blends 
 
 With hoi rid war and battle-shrieks; and when 
 
 War is an art, sends down through every age, 
 
 In the grand Epic, all the praise of men ; 
 
 She scathes in Satire every cruel ban ; 
 
 Chases in Comic mirth to her abode ; 
 
 Dashes in murderous Tragic on the clan 
 
 Of bloody wrongs, or sparkles in the Ode. 
 
 As to the workman's hand his tools, so to 
 The hand of th' Inspiration Angel stood 
 Art, Music, Poesy, wherewith to do 
 Her work, and reap the golden crop of good. 
 
10 
 
 Her labors greet us in our joyous hours; 
 
 Nor these alone, but in the saddest scene. 
 
 She weaves a garland of the sweetest flowers, 
 
 And dying Nature clothes in gayest green. 
 
 As shame hurts pride, and hides from hot desire 
 
 Beneath a flimsy fig-leaf covering, 
 
 The fetid form, the sombre weeds, the pyre, 
 
 Offend the high seraphic hovering 
 
 Of Beauty's Angel, hiding in the grave 
 
 The casket of the disembodied soul ; 
 
 Hiding the hate of death beneath the wave 
 
 Of oue wide scope of beauty, o'er the whole 
 
 Where, 'neath her feet, the grasses wave and bloom, 
 
 And myriad daisies, feeding on the dead, 
 
 Shroud the cold clay ; or where the gorgeous tomb 
 
 Or mausoleum deck the low-lain head. 
 
 She names Death Sleep ; upon the canvas, bids 
 
 A purer life breath out of every line ; 
 
 Wafts a sweet quiet o'er the heavy lids 
 
 Of the flushed eye, at Music's holy shrine ; 
 
 Wraps the sad spirit in the sable weeds 
 
 Of the elegiac, bodying out the gloom 
 
 Of inward loneliness, or ere it feeds 
 
 Upon a life o'ertoppliug to its doom. 
 
 Should weary reason tremble on its throne, 
 Her voice could lull the maniac back to peace, 
 Whom " melancholy marketh for her own," 
 Her voice could charm again to liveliness. 
 
 Boom the loud cannon o'er the watery waste, 
 The dead rise up we grappled for in vain ; 
 So science grapples for the truth thou sayest, 
 Down deep and wide about her vast domain ; 
 ■Yet mighty truths in their fair light have loomed, 
 When o'er the reaching tide her voice hath boomed. 
 
 Oft on the tented field hath freedom called 
 Her few devoted sons, to feel the blow 
 Of tyrants, or of traitors ; unappalled 
 They follow on, and oft have laid them low. 
 
20 
 
 But Pride again hath dashed the rowels deep 
 
 Into the side of lust, ambition, greed, 
 
 And nigh o'erridden liberty, to reap 
 
 A bloody harvest, on her fertile meed ; 
 
 There courage bleeding lay ; revenge that lit 
 
 The torch, that smote, that cleft ; and^hope 
 
 That pointed through the bloody gorge, through it 
 
 To brighter scenes, both faint along the slope. 
 
 Then when the battle breeze hath rent their trust, 
 
 And shock of doom hath given the palm to pride, 
 
 When fire of trial tried the true and just, 
 
 Deep in each heart, her still small voice replied, 
 
 " Sons of your sires, awake ! 
 To arms ! To arms ! 
 War, when your name's at stake, 
 
 Hath no alarms. 
 Die for your children's sake ! 
 Blood for them warms ; 
 Then for your watchword take, 
 Our wives, our homes ! 
 Strike for the civil bond, lay down your souls 
 For God, for right ; to wrong deal a death dole. 
 
 " Gladly your father's bled, 
 Suffered and died ; 
 Gladly they flung the stead 
 
 Of joy aside. 
 You their dear children fed, 
 Grew at their side, 
 Nursed by the hand they wed, 
 Fond mother's pride ; 
 The flag of justice shadowing their sod, 
 They gave to you, religion, and to God. 
 
 "Ne'er let your children say 
 Ye were a craven, 
 Ne'er let them know the day- 
 Fear was engraven. 
 
21 
 
 Fight for them, strike home ! slay ! 
 Till red the heavens — 
 Then hope of your partner clay 
 To be forgiven. 
 Give them a proud emblem to deck their sky, 
 In solemn court ye'll meet them bye and bye." 
 
 Then flashed the dawn of freedom far and wide — 
 Then fled her invader to his utmost bound ; 
 Fired by her battle-song, her stalwart pride 
 Lays the grim giant weltering in his wound. 
 Oh, song immortal ! may'st thou ever be 
 The guard of virtue, liberty, and right ! 
 Be thou to cheer them in the thickest fight, 
 And kiss them with a glorious victory. 
 
 Thus roll her orbs of love and gracefulnes, 
 Where every new-born Paradise appears ! 
 Her seasons run with willing haste to bless, 
 And magnify, and hail her through the years : 
 First, clad in Iris' spring-time, blossom-flecked, 
 And beauty crowned — embannered far and wide ; 
 In silver radiant summer, harvest-decked — 
 In nature glorified and purified; 
 As golden autumn — mellow, flowing o'er 
 With all the gladsome wine of steep and glen — 
 Beneath whose shows the embryo bud and flower 
 Of their next season, forms beyond our ken ; 
 Then weary wiDter-robed, when they are gone — 
 These beauteous ones — to cheer the heart no more; 
 But in its cradle sheath is slumbering on 
 The bud; and, mother-like, the storms weep o'er; 
 The wild winds rock, and birds sing o'er its nest, 
 Till later springs shall wake it from its rest ; 
 So, some would say, the works of art sublime 
 No more shall rise and greet a glowing age; 
 Chilled by the breath of truth, their blossom time 
 No more will glisten on time's ample page ! 
 No more the glittering of their golden stars 
 Rise, triumph o'er us, set, and rise again, 
 
22 
 
 Eclipsed by science, bursting througb tbe bars 
 
 Of her dark night, and beaming from her fane. 
 
 But music too, and poesy, and art, 
 
 Her kin, may live beyond the frost of wrong ; 
 
 For while there's life-blood in the world's great heart, 
 
 Shall their warm sunshine urge its flow along. 
 
 Though never more a Homer's ample lay 
 
 Embalm the story of heroic times, 
 
 Or Raphael's spirit with the rainbow play — 
 
 Or Phidias rear the type of Beauty's lines; 
 
 (So howled the critics of our mother isle, 
 
 When Milton once again took up the lute ; 
 
 But Milton's song shall rule our homely style 
 
 For many a year when Homer's song is mute ;) 
 
 Whene'er again a call comes o'er the waste, 
 
 To conquer strife or cheat the world of pain, 
 
 Earth's brightest angel waiteth calm and chaste 
 
 To meet our yearnings and our fears restrain. 
 
 Though far aback along the misty way, 
 
 Old forms that now o'ertopple to their doom, 
 
 High-reared excluding us from light of day, 
 
 May see the prophet of their downfall loom, 
 
 Yet bar the window of the soul, that drinks 
 
 The rustic gabble of a giddy sphere, 
 
 And lull the spirit nerve until it sinks 
 
 To that calmness the upper angels wear ; 
 
 Far up the dusky aisle the quickened ear 
 
 May catch sweet strains of loftier music far 
 
 Than swelled or died along the wrecking years 
 
 Of time. Bright as an undimmed star, 
 
 Hand grasping hand — she winds the devious way 
 
 Of piety, religion at her side, 
 
 Tuning the heartstrings to a lasting lay 
 
 Of accents, broken on this ruthless tide 
 
 Of life, perfected in eternity. 
 
 She thrills the Christian mother o'er her child, 
 
 In songs that echo through the man to be, 
 
 She gives to us when the hot heart is wild, 
 
 To her beloved, songs to cheer the night; 
 
 Whose chorus caught is sent from shore to shore. 
 
23 
 
 Till now, when Sabbath morn, alike the bright 
 
 Leader of tides, revolves around and o'er 
 
 The earth, upward is borne a tidal wave 
 
 Of sacred music over land and sea, 
 
 In every tongue — the highest and the slave 
 
 Rejoice together o'er the man to be. 
 
 And yet a higher bound is set to song 
 
 Immortal, in a wider circle where 
 
 Adown death's rugged steep the trains sweep on 
 
 Through the dark river, to the home wherein 
 
 One universal praise shall crown their days, 
 
 With her sole empress in the golden strife 
 
 Wherein discord has failed, and in her praise 
 
 Her faithful votaries pass an endless life.