And, Mary, you have done your part in rowin' to the shore, And Bessie, our sweet daughter-God bless her loving heart! I'll build a little cottage, soon, to make your heart rejoice; I'll buy a good piano to go with Bessie's voice; You shall not make your butter with that up and down con cern, For I'll go this very day and buy the finest patent churn. Lay by your faded calico, and go with me to town, While our hearts are now so joyful, let us, Mary, not forget arm, And lengthened out the days to see no mortgage on the farm. OUR WHOLE COUNTRY. Who would sever freedom's shrine? Dear to me the South's fair land, By our altars, pure and free; By our common parent tongue ; Fathers! have ye bled in vain ? No!-receive our solemn vow, SPEECH OF VINDICATION.-ROBERT EMMET. MY LORDS: What have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me, according to law?—I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, nor that it will become me to say, with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and I must abide by. But I have that to say, which interests me more than life, and which you have labored to destroy. I have much to say, why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it. Were I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur; but the sentence of law which delivers my body to the executioner will, through the ministry of that law, labor, in its own vindication, to consign my character to obloquy: for there must be guilt somewhere, --whether in the sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, posterity must determine. The man dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not perish,-that it may live in the respect of my countrymen,—I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me.* When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood, on the scaffold and in the field, in defence of their country and virtue; this is my hope,-I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most High, which displays its power over man as over the beasts of the forest, which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God, against the throat of his fellow, who believes or doubts a little more or less than the government standard, ~a government which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the widows which its cruelty has made. I swear, by the throne of heaven, before which I must shortly appear,―by the blood of the murdered patriots who have gone before me,-that my conduct has been, through all this peril, and all my purposes, governed only by the convictions which I have uttered, and no other view than that of the emancipation of my country from the superinhuman oppression under which she has so long, and too patiently, travailed; and that I confidently and assuredly hope, (wild and chimerical as it may appear,) that there is still union and strength in Ireland to accomplish this noble enterprise. Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dis honor; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence; or that I could have become the pliant minion of power, in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the domestic tyrant; in the dignity of freedom, I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and her enemies should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. Am I, who lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the vengeance of the jealous and wrathful oppressor, and to the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, am I to be loaded with calumny, and not to be suf fered to resent or repel it? No!- God forbid! If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the con cerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life, O ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny on the conduct of your suffering son; and see if I have even for a moment deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instil into my youthful mind, and for an adherence to which I am now to offer up my life! My lords, you are all impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled, through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous that they cry to heaven! Be yet patient! I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my silent grave; my lamp of life is nearly extinguished; my race is run; the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world,-it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no one who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character. When my country shall take her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written! I have done. THE FIRST PARTING.-MARIAN DOUGLASS. "Yes, I am off to-morrow morn! Next week I sail for Indy! And you'll be glad when I am gone,― A summer flower herself, the maid A June pink in her hair's smooth braid, Plucked from the tall bush in the yard, Her lip began to grieve; the red "It seems a strange choice, Tom," she said, "For you to be a sailor; "And when the wild, black clouds I see, And when the nights are windy, I-" "Bless your soul! you'll pray for me; I know you will, Lucindy!" The rosebud from her hand he took; "I never cared, as women do, But somehow-why, I never knew— "They seem just made for weddin's; when I come again from Indy, My bride, you'll wear white roses then; A sudden flame upon her cheek, Her eyes the quick tears filling, For, "Tom," she asked, "how can it be? And he said, "True, but though I hain't, "But when my mind was fixed to go I said, 'I'll have a Yes or No;' |