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; While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. In a clime whose rich vales feed the masts of the world, Though in thunder arrayed, Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade. The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sway, Till the dark clouds of faction obscured our young day, Who their country have sold, And bartered their God for His image in gold, While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood, Yet the boon we disclaim, If bought by our sovereignty, justice, or fame; 'Tis the fire of the flint each American warms; To our laws we're allied, No foe can subdue us, no faction divide; For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, 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; 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; 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; 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, 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, 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 Joy, joy! Thy destiny hath found thee; 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, Through the world the tidings pour, As the wave of morning fills the long Atlantic shore. O destined Land, unto thy citadel What founding fates even now doth peace compel, For thou art founded in the eternal fact That every man doth greaten with the act By sharp experience taught the thing he lacked, They could not help but frame the fabric well Who squared the stones for heaven's eye to tell; That the true workman's only he who builds of God's necessity. |