ON THE CASTLE OF CHILLON

215

This nation has a banner; and wherever it streamed abroad, men saw daybreak bursting on their eyes, for the American flag has been the symbol of liberty, and men rejoiced in it. Not another flag on the globe had such an errand or went forth upon the sea carrying everywhere, the world around, such hope for the captive and such glorious tidings. The stars upon it were to the pining nations like the morning stars of God, and the stripes upon it were beams of morning light. And wherever the flag comes and men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry, no rampant lion and fierce eagle, but only light, and every fold significant of liberty.

Let us then twine each thread of the glorious tissue of our country's flag about our heartstrings; and looking upon our homes and catching the spirit that breathes upon us from the battlefields of our fathers, let us resolve, come weal or woe, we will, in life and in death, now and forever, stand by the stars and stripes.

- HENRY WARD BEECHER.

ON THE CASTLE OF CHILLON

ETERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art —
For there thy habitation is the heart
The heart which love of Thee alone can bind;

And when thy sons to fetters are consigned,

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,
Their country conquers with their martyrdom
And freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.
- GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON.

216

STAND BY THE FLAG!

STAND BY THE FLAG!

STAND by the Flag! Its stars, like meteors gleaming,
Have lighted Arctic icebergs, southern seas,
And shone responsive to the stormy beaming
Of old Arcturus and the Pleiades.

Stand by the Flag! Its stripes have streamed in glory,
To foes a fear, to friends a festal robe,

And spread in rhythmic lines the sacred story
Of Freedom's triumphs over all the globe.

Stand by the Flag! On land and ocean billow
By it your fathers stood unmoved and true,
Living, defended; dying, from their pillow,
With their last blessing, passed it on to you.

Stand by the Flag! Immortal heroes bore it

Through sulphurous smoke, deep moat and armed defence; And their imperial Shades still hover o'er it,

A guard celestial from Omnipotence.

- JOHN NICHOLS WILDER.

DEAR LAND OF ALL MY LOVE

LONG as thine art shall love true love,
Long as thy science truth shall know,
Long as thine eagle harms no dove,
Long as thy law by law shall grow,
Long as thy God is God above,
Thy brother every man below,

So long, dear land of all my love,

Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow.

-SIDNEY LANIER (Centennial Ode, 1876).

From "Poems of Sidney Lanier." Copyright, 1891, and published by

Ch.s. Scribner's Sons.

218

LOVE OF COUNTRY

GENERAL PATRIOTIC SELECTIONS

LOVE OF COUNTRY

I LOVE my country's pine-clad hills,
Her thousand bright and gushing rills,
Her sunshine and her storms;

Her rough and rugged rocks that rear
Their hoary heads high in the air
In wild, fantastic forms.

I love her rivers, deep and wide,
Those mighty streams, that seaward glide
To seek the ocean's breast;

Her smiling fields, her pleasant vales,
Her shady dells, her flowery dales,
Her haunts of peaceful rest.

I love her forest, dark and lone,
For there the wild bird's merry tone
Is heard from morn till night,

And there are lovelier flowers I ween,
Than e'er in Eastern land was seen
In varied colors bright.

Her forest, and her valleys fair,

Her flowers that scent the morning air,
Have all their charms for me;

But more I love my country's name,
Those words that echo deathless fame,
"The land of liberty."

- UNKNOWN.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

219

THE FLAG

O'ER the high and o'er the lowly
Floats that banner bright and holy,
In the rays of Freedom's sun,

In the nation's heart embedded,
O'er our Union newly wedded,
One in all, and all in one.

Let that banner wave forever,
May its lustrous stars fade never,
Till the stars shall pale on high;

While there's right the wrong defeating,

While there's hope in true hearts beating,

Truth and Freedom shall not die.

Wave then,

And scatter like the circling sun,
Thy charities on all.

-J. C. F. SCHILLER.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

NEVER before have men tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a continent under the forms of a democratic republic. Upon the success of our experiment much depends,—not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock to its foundations; and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to the generations yet