Star of the North! though night winds drift
The fleecy drapery of the sky
Between thy lamp and me, I lift,
Yea, lift with hope, my sleepless eye
To the blue heights wherein thou dwellest,
And of a land of freedom tellest.
Star of the North! while blazing day
Pours round me its full tide of light,
And hides thy pale but...
Stand! the ground’s your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?
Will ye look for greener graves?
Hope ye mercy still?
What ’s the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle-peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel!
Ask it,—ye who will.
Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look...
A weapon that comes down as still
As snowflakes fall upon the sod;
But executes a freeman’s will,
As lightning does the will of God.
His falchion flashed along the Nile;
His hosts he led through Alpine snows;
O’er Moscow’s towers, that shook the while,
His eagle flag unrolled,—and froze.
Here sleeps he now, alone;—not one
Of all the kings whose crowns he gave,
Nor sire, nor brother, wife, nor son,
Hath ever seen or sought his grave.
Here sleeps he...
The pilgrim FATHERS,—where are they?
The waves that brought them o’er
Still roll in the bay, and throw their spray
As they break along the shore;
Still roll in the bay, as they rolled that day
When the Mayflower moored below,
When the sea around was black with storms,
And white the shore with snow.
The mists that wrapped...
i cannot make him dead!
His fair sunshiny head
Is ever bounding round my study-chair;
Yet, when my eyes, now dim
With tears, I turn to him,
The vision vanishes—he is not there!
I walk my parlor floor,
And through the open door
I hear a footfall on the chamber stair;
I ’m stepping toward the...
A National Portrait
THE YANKEE boy, before he ’s sent to school,
Well knows the mysteries of that magic tool,
The pocket-knife. To that his wistful eye
Turns, while he hears his mother’s lullaby;
His hoarded cents he gladly gives to get it,
Then leaves no stone unturned till he can whet it;
And in the education of the lad
No little...
I Cannot make him dead!
His fair sunshiny head
Is ever bounding round my study chair;
Yet when my eyes, now dim
With tears, I turn to him,
The vision vanishes,—he is not there!
I walk my parlor floor,
And, through the open door,
I hear a footfall on the chamber stair;
I ’m stepping toward the...
Was it the chime of a tiny bell
That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,
Like the silvery tones of a fairy’s shell
That he winds, on the beach, so mellow and clear,
When the winds and the waves lie together asleep,
And the Moon and the Fairy are watching the deep,
She dispensing her silvery light,
And he his notes as silvery quite,...
STAND! 1 the ground ’s your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?
Will ye look for greener graves?
Hope ye mercy still?
What ’s the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle-peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel!
Ask it,—ye who will.
Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?...
