Since first thy form was in this box extended,
We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations:
The Roman empire has begun and ended;
New worlds have risen; we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
Whilst not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.
Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,
And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?
If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold:
A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled !
Have children climbed those knees and kissed that face
What was thy name and station, age and race?
Statue of flesh! immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence!
Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence!
Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning!
Why should this worthless tegument endure
If its undying guest be lost for ever?
O, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure
In living virtue, that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.
This brief stanza affords a fine example for rapid and forceful utterance:
A breath of submission we breathe not,
The sword that we've drawn we will sheathe not;
Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid,
And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade.
Earth may hide, waves engulph, fire consume us
But they shall not to slavery doom us;
If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves :-
But we've smote them already with fire on the waves
And new triumphs on land are before us.
To the charge! Heaven's banner is o'er us.
THE AMERICAN PATRIOT'S SONG.
Slowly, reverently, as if deeply impressed by the angust and solemn nature of the subject, should these lines be spoken. There should but little action accompany delivery of the language:
Nature's great ancestor! Day's elder born!
And fated to survive the transient sun!
By mortals and immortals seen with awe!
A starry crown thy raven brow adorns,
An azure zone thy waist: clouds, in heaven's loom
Wrought through varieties of shape and shade,
In ample folds of drapery divine,
Thy flowing mantle form, and, heaven throughout,
Voluminously pour thy pompous train:
Thy gloomy grandeurs-Nature's most august
Inspiring aspect !-claim a grateful verse,
And like a sable curtain starred with gold,
Drawn o'er my labors past, shall clothe the scene.
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Silence how dead! and darkness how profound!
Nor eye, nor listening ear an object finds.
Creation sleeps. "Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
And let her prophecy be soon fulfilled:
Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more.
THE AMERICAN PATRIOT'S SONG.
Deliver this in a bold, exultant tone of voice, with free, liberal gesticulation and action :
Hark! hear ye the sound that the winds on their pinions
Exultingly roll from the shore to the sea,
With a voice that resounds through her boundless dominions?
'Tis Columbia calls on her sons to be free!
Behold, on yon summits where Heaven has throned her,
How she starts from her proud, inaccessible seat;
THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR.
Behold, on yon summits where Heaven has throned her,
How she starts from her proud, inaccessible seat;
With Nature's impregnable ramparts around her,
And the cataract's thunder and foam at her feet!
In the breeze of the mountains her loose locks are shaken,
While the soul-stirring notes of her warrior-song
From the rock to the valley re-echo, "Awaken,
Awaken, ye hearts that have slumbered too long!"
Yes, Despots! too long did your tyranny hold us
In a vassalage vile, ere its weakness was known;
Till we learned that the links of the chain that controlled us
Were forged by the fears of its captives alone.
That spell is destroyed, and no longer availing,
Despised as detested-pause well ere ye dare
To cope with a people whose spirits and feeling
Are aroused by remembrance and steeled by despair.
Go tame the wild torrent, or stem with a straw
The proud surges that sweep o'er the strand that confines them ;
But presume not again to give freemen a law,
Nor think with the chains they have broken to bind them.
To hearts that the spirit of Liberty flushes,
Resistance is idle, and numbers a dream;
They burst. from control, as the mountain-stream rushes
From its fetters of ice, in the warmth of the beam.
THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR.
This fine poem is full of points for brilliant declamation; at times there should be a flow of rapid narration, rising frequently into shouts of exultation:
Come, see the good ship's anchor forged-'tis at a white heat now: The bellows ceased, the flames decreased-though on the forge's brow
The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound,
And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round;
All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare-
Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there.
The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves below,
And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe:
THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR.
It rises, roars, rends all outright-0, Vulcan, what a glow!
'Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright—the high sun shines not so!
The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery fearful show;
The roof-ribs swart, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row
Of smiths that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe
As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing-monster slow
Sinks on the anvil-all about the faces fiery grow.
"Hurrah!" they shout, leap out-leap out;" bang, bang the sledges go;
Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low—
A hailing fount of fire is struck at every quashing blow;
The leathern mail rebounds the hail, the rattling cinders strow
The ground around: at every bound the sweltering fountains flow,
And thick and loud the swinking crowd at every stroke pant "Ho!""
Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load!
Let's forge a goodly anchor-a bower thick and broad;
For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode,
And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road-
The low reef roaring on her lee-the roll of ocean poured
From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board;
The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains!
But courage still, brave mariners-the bower yet remains!
And not an inch to flinch he deigns, save when ye pitch sky-high;
Then moves his head, as though he said, “Fear nothing-here am
I."
Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time;
Your blows make sweeter music far than any steeple's chime.
But while you sling your sledges, sing-and let the burden be,
"The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we"
Strike in, strike in-the sparks begin to dull their rustling red;
Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be sped.
Our anchor must soon change his bed of fiery rich array,
For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay;
Our anchor must soon change the lay of merry craftsmen here,
For the "Yeo-heave-o'!" and the "Heave-away!" and the sighing
seaman's cheer;
When, weighing slow, at eve they go-far, far from love and home;
And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam.
In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last;
A shapely one he is, and strong, as e'er from cat was cast.
O, trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me,
What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea!
O, broad-armed diver of the deep, whose sports can equal thine?
The good ship weighs a thousand tons, that tugs thy cable line;
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