Back to the pathless forest
Before the peep of day.

Grave men there are by broad Santee,
Grave men with hoary hairs;
Their hearts are all with Marion,
For Marion are their prayers.

And lovely ladies greet our band
With kindliest welcoming,

With smiles like those of summer,
And tears like those of spring;
For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more
Till we have driven the Briton
Forever from our shore.

BY

THE CONCORD HYMN

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Y the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

irit, that made those heroes dare

To die, and leave their children free, d Time and nature gently spare

The shaft we raise to them and thee.

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE

Rodman Drake was an American poet of great promise who e age of twenty-five. His principal poem is "The Culprit

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

e tore the azure robe of night,

d 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.

Majestic monarch of the cloud,
Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
To hear the tempest trumpings loud
And see the lightning lances driven,
When strive the warriors of the storm,
And rolls the thunder drum of Heaven,-
Child of the sun! To thee 'tis given
To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the clouds of war,
The harbingers of victory!

Flag of the brave! Thy folds shall fly
The sign of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on.
Ere yet the lifeblood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,—
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn

To where thy sky-born glories burn;
And, as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And, when the cannon mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud,
And gory sabers rise and fall

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,
And cowering foes shall shrink beneath.
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! On ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When Death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea

Shall look at once to Heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly

In triumph, o'er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home!

By angel hands to Valor given!

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in Heaven.

Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?

CH. LIT. VI. - - 12

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY

FRANCIS MILES FINCH

Francis Miles Finch, lawyer and poet, was born at Ithaca, N.Y., in 1827, and died in 1907. He graduated from Yale in 1849, and practiced law in his native town. He wrote many lyrics, but his fame as a poet rests chiefly on the two poems given in this volume, “The Blue and the Gray,” and “Nathan Hale.”

BY the flow of the inland river,

Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave grass quiver
Asleep are the ranks of the dead:
Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day;
Under the one, the Blue,
Under the other, the Gray.

These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the laurel, the Blue,

Under the willow, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours

The desolate mourners go,

Lovingly laden with flowers.

Alike for the friend and the foe: