"While I resolved these ideas, new warmth flowed in upon my heart I was wrong. These feelings were the growth of selfishness. Of this I was not aware, and, to dispel the mist that obscured my perceptions, a new effulgence, and a new mandate were necessary.

From these thoughts I was recalled by a ray that was shot into the room. A voice spake like that which I had before heard: 'Thou hast done well. But all is not done the sacrifice is incomplete thy children must be offered-they must perish with their mother! — '

EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE

[Born at New York City, August 7, 1795; died at New York City, September 21, 1820]

THE FAY'S SENTENCE

FROM "THE CULPRIT FAY"

The monarch sat on his judgment-seat,
On his brow the crown imperial shone,
The prisoner Fay was at his feet,

And his peers were ranged around the throne
He waved his sceptre in the air;

He looked around and calmly spoke;

His brow was grave and his eye severe,

But his voice in a softened accent broke :

Fairy! Fairy! list and mark,

Thou hast broken thine elfin chain,

Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,
And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain
Thou hast sullied thine elfin purity
In the glance of a mortal maiden's eye,
Thou hast scorned our dread decree,
And thou shouldst pay the forfeit high,
But well I know her sinless mind
Is pure as the angel forms above,
Gentle and meek and chaste and kind,
Such as a spirit well might love;
Fairy! had she spot or taint,
Bitter had been thy punishment.

Tied to the hornet's shardy wings;
Tossed on the pricks of nettle's stings;
Or seven long ages doomed to dwell
With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell;
Or every night to writhe and bleed
Beneath the tread of the centipede;
Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim,
Your jailor a spider huge and grim,
Amid the carrion bodies to lie,

Of the worm, and the bug, and the murdered fly;
These it had been your lot to bear,

Had a stain been found on the earthly fair.

Now list, and mark our mild decree

Fairy, this your doom must be:

"Thou shalt seek the beach of sand

Where the water bounds the elfin land,

Thou shalt watch the oozy brine

Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,
Then dart the glistening arch below,

And catch a drop from his silver bow.
And dash around, with roar and rave,
And vain are the woodland spirits' charms,
They are the imps that rule the wave.
Yet trust thee in thy single might,-
If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right,
Thou shalt win the warlock fight.

"If the spray-bead gem be won,

The stain of thy wing is washed away, But another errand must be done

Ere the crime be lost for aye;

Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,
Thou must re-illumine its spark.

Mount thy steed and spur him high

To the heaven's blue canopy;

And when thou seest a shooting star,

Follow it fast, and follow it far

The last faint spark of its burning train
Shall light the elfin lamp again.
Thou hast heard our sentence, Fay;
Hence to the water-side, away!'

THE SECOND QUEST

Up, Fairy! quit thy chickweed bower,
The cricket has called the second hour,
Twice again, and the lark will rise
To kiss the streaking of the skies -
Up! thy charmed armor don,

Thou 'lt need it ere the night be gone.

He put his acorn helmet on;

It was plumed of the silk of the thistle-down;
The corselet plate that guarded his breast
Was once the wild bee's golden vest;

His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes,
Was formed of the wings of butterflies;

His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen,

Studs of gold on a ground of green;

And the quivering lance which he brandished bright,

Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight.

Swift he bestrode his fire-fly steed;

He bared his blade of the bent-grass blue;

He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed,

And away like a glance of thought he flew,

To skim the heavens and follow far
The fiery trail of the rocket-star.

The moth-fly, as he shot in air,

Crept under the leaf, and hid her there;

The katy-did forgot its lay,

The prowling gnat fled fast away,

The fell mosquito checked his drone,

And folded his wings till the Fay was gone,

And the wily beetle dropped his head,

And fell on the ground as if he were dead;
They crouched them close in the darksome shade,
They quaked all o'er with awe and fear,

For they had felt the blue-bent blade,

And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear;
Many a time, on a summer's night,

When the sky was clear and the moon was bright,
They had been roused from the haunted ground
By the yelp and bay of the fairy hound;
They had heard the tiny bugle-horn,

They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string,
When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn,
And the nettle-shaft through air was borne,
Feathered with down of the humbird's wing.
And now they deemed the courier ouphe,

Some hunter-sprite of the elfin ground;

And they watched till they saw him mount the roof
That canopies the world around;

Then glad they left their covert lair,
And freaked about in the midnight air.

THE AMERICAN FLAG

When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.