COLUMBIA AND LIBERTY.

ROBERT TREAT PAINE.

E sons of Columbia, who bravely have fought

YE

For those rights which, unstained, from your sires have descended,

May you long taste the blessings your valor has bought, And your sons reap the soil which your fathers defended. 'Mid the reign of mild peace

May your nation increase.

With the glory of Rome and the wisdom of Greece;
And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,

While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

In a clime whose rich vales feed the masts of the world,
Whose shores are unshaken by Europe's commotion,
The trident of commerce shall never be hurled
To increase the legitimate powers of the ocean.
But should pirates invade,

Though in thunder arrayed,

Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade.
For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sway,
Had justly ennobled our nation in story,

Till the dark clouds of faction obscured our young day,
And enveloped the sun of American glory.
But let traitors be told,

Who their country have sold,

And bartered their God for His image in gold,
That ne'er will the sons of Columbia be slaves,

While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood,
And society's base threats with wide dissolution;"
May peace, like the dove who returned from the flood,
Find an ark of abode in our mild constitution.
But, though peace is our aim,

Yet the boon we disclaim,

If bought by our sovereignty, justice, or fame;
For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

'Tis the fire of the flint each American warms;
Let Rome's haughty victors beware of collision.
Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms—
We're a world by ourselves, and disdain a division.
While with patriot pride

To our laws we're allied,

No foe can subdue us, no faction divide;

For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

Our mountains are crowned with imperial oak,

Whose roots, like our liberties, ages have nourished;

But long ere our nation submits to the yoke,

Not a tree shall be left on the field where it flourished. Should invasion impend,

Every grove would descend

From the hill-tops they shaded, our shores to defend;
For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

Let our patriots destroy anarch's pestilent worm,

Lest our liberty's growth be checked by corrosion; Then let clouds thicken round us-we heed not the storm, Our realm fears no shock but the earth's own explosion. Foes assail us in vain,

Though their fleets bridge the main,

For our altars and laws with our lives we'll maintain;
For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,

While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

Should the tempest of war overshadow our land,

Its bolts could ne'er rend freedom's temple asunder; For, unmoved, at its portal would Washington stand, And repulse with his breast the assaults of the thunder! His sword from the sleep

Of its scabbard would leap,

And conduct, with its point, every flash to the deep;
For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

Let fame to the world sound America's voice;

No intrigues can her sons from their government sever. Her pride are her statesmen; their laws are her choice, And shall flourish till liberty slumbers forever.

Then unite heart and hand,

Like Leonidas' band,

And swear to the God of the ocean and land,

That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

L

MY COUNTRY.

GEORGE E. WOODBERRY.

OOK forth, O Land, thy mountain-tops

Glitter; look, the shadow drops;

On the warder summits hoary

Bursts the splendor-voicèd story!

Round the crags of watching, rolled,

The purple vales of heaven unfold,

And far-shining ridges hang in air—

Northward beam, and to the South thy promise bear.

Unto isle and headland sing it,

O'er the misty midland fling it,

From a hundred glorious peaks, the Appalachian gold! O'er the valley of the thousand rivers,

O'er the sea-horizoned lakes,

Through heaven's wide gulf the marvelous fire quivers,
Myriad-winged, and every dwindling star o'ertakes;
On where earth's last ranges listen,
Thunder-peaks that cloud the West;

With the flashing signal waken;

All the tameless Rockies own itOne great edge of sunrise glisten; All the skied Sierras throne it; And lone Shasta, high uplifted, O'er the snowy centuries drifted,

Hears, and through his lands is splendor shaken From the morning's jewel in his crest!

O chosen Land

God's hand

Doth touch thy spires,

And lights on all thy hills his rousing fires!

O beacon of the nations, lift thy head;

Firm be thy bases under

Now thy earth might with heaven wed
Beyond hell's hate to sunder!
O Land of promise, whom all eyes
Have strained through time to see,
Since poets, cradled in the skies,
Flashed prophecy on thee!

Joy, joy! Thy destiny hath found thee;
Now the oceans brighten round thee;
To thy heaven-born fate ascending
Thou, earth's darling! Thou, the yearning
Of the last hope in her burning!

Titan, crowner of the ages, Now the eagle seeks thy hand: Poets, statesmen, heroes, sages, In thy lustrous portals stand!

Well may mount to mount declare thee, Ocean unto ocean sound thee,

To the skies loud hymns upbear thee,
Earth embrace, and heaven bound thee-
God hath found thee,

Through the world the tidings pour,
And fill it o'er and o'er,

As the wave of morning fills the long Atlantic shore.

O destined Land, unto thy citadel

What founding fates even now doth peace compel,
That through the world thy name is sweet to tell!
O throned Freedom, unto thee is brought
Empire; nor falsehood, nor blood payment asked
Who never through deceit thy ends hast sought,
Nor toiling millions for ambition tasked.

For thou art founded in the eternal fact

That every man doth greaten with the act
Of freedom; and doth strengthen with the weight
Of duty; and diviner moulds his fate.

By sharp experience taught the thing he lacked,
God's pupil; thy large maxim framed, though late,—
Who masters best himself, best serves the state.
Large-limbed they were, the pioneers;
Cast in the iron mold that fate reveres.

They could not help but frame the fabric well

Who squared the stones for heaven's eye to tell;
Who knew from old, and taught posterity

That the true workman's only he who builds of God's necessity.