Hear a song that was born in the land of my birth!
The anchors are lifted, the fair ship is free,
And the shout of the mariners floats in its mirth
'Twixt the light in the sky and the light on the sea.
And this ship is a world. She is freighted with souls,
She is freighted with merchandise; proudly she sails
With the Labor that stores, and the Will that controls
The gold in the ingots, the silk in the bales.
From the gardens of Pleasure, where reddens the rose,
And the scent of the cedar is faint on the air,
Past the harbors of Traffic, sublimely she goes,
Man's hopes o'er the world of the waters to bear!
Where the cheer from the harbors of Traffic is heard,
Where the gardens of Pleasure fade fast on the sight,
O'er the rose, o'er the cedar, there passes a bird;
'Tis the Paradise Bird, never known to alight.
And that bird, bright and bold as a poet's desire,
Roams her own native heavens, the realms of her birth,
There she soars like a seraph, she shines like a fire,
And her plumage hath never been sullied by earth.
And the mariners greet her; there's song on each lip,
For the bird of good omen, and joy in each eye,
And the ship and the bird, and the bird and the ship,
Together go forth over ocean and sky.
Fast, fast fades the land! far the rose-gardens flee,
And far fleet the harbors. In regions unknown
The ship is alone on a desert of sea,
And the bird in a desert of sky is alone.
In those regions unknown, o'er that desert of air,
Down that desert of waters--tremendous in wrath--
The storm-wind Euroclydon leaps from his lair,
And cleaves through the waves of the ocean, his path.
And the bird in the cloud, and the ship on the wave.
Overtaken, are beaten about by wild gales,
And the mariners all rush their cargo to save,
Of the gold in the ingots, the silk in the bales.
Lo! a wonder which never before hath been heard
For it never before hath been given to sight;
On the ship hath descended the Paradise Bird,
The Paradise Bird never known to alight!
The bird which the mariners bless'd, when each lip
Had a song for the omen which gladden'd each eye,
The bright bird for shelter hath flown to the ship
From the wrath on the sea and the wrath in the sky.
But the mariners heed not the bird any more,
They are felling the masts--they are furling the sails,
Some are working, some weeping, and some wrangling o'er
Their gold in the ingots, their silk in the bales.
Souls of men are on board; wealth of man in the hold;
And the storm-wind Euroclydon sweeps to his prey;
And who heeds the bird? "Save the silk and the gold!"
And the bird from her shelter the gust sweeps away!
Poor Paradise Bird! on her lone flight once more
Back again in the wake of the wind she is driven--
To be whelm'd in the storm, or above it to soar,
And, if rescued from ocean, to vanish in heaven!
And the ship rides the waters, and weathers the gales:
From the haven she nears the rejoicing is heard.
All hands are at work on the ingots, the bales,
Save a child, sitting lonely, who misses--the Bird!
TECUMSEH'S SPEECH TO THE CREEK WARRIORS--_Clairborn's Life of Gen.
Dale._
In defiance of the white warriors of Ohio and Kentucky, I have
traveled through their settlements, once our favorite hunting-grounds.
No war-whoop was sounded, but there is blood on our knives. The pale
faces felt the blow, but knew not whence it came.
Accursed be the race that has seized on our country and made women of
our warriors. Our fathers, from their tombs, reproach us as slaves and
cowards. I hear them now in the wailing winds.
The Muscogee was once a mighty people. The Georgians trembled at our
war-whoop, and the maidens of my tribe, in the distant lakes, sung the
prowess of your warriors, and sighed for their embraces.
Now, your very blood is white, your tomahawks have no edge, your bows
and arrows were buried with your fathers. O Muscogees! brethren of my
mother, brush from your eyelids the sleep of slavery; once more strike
for vengeance--once more for your country! The spirits of the mighty
dead complain. The tears drop from the weeping skies. Let the white
race perish!
They seize your land; they corrupt your women; they trample on the
ashes of your dead!
Back whence they came, upon a trail of blood, they must be driven.
Back! back, ay, into the great water whose accursed waves brought them
to our shore!
Burn their dwellings! Destroy their stock! Slay their wives and
children! The red man owns the country, and the pale face must never
enjoy it!
War now! War forever! War upon the living! War upon the dead! Dig
their very corpses from the grave. Our country must give no rest to a
white man's bones.
All the tribes of the North are dancing the war dance. Two mighty
warriors across the seas will send us arms.
Tecumseh will soon return to his country. My prophets shall tarry with
you. They will stand between you and the bullets of your enemies. When
the white man approaches you, the yawning earth shall swallow him up.
Soon shall you see my arm of fire stretched athwart the sky. I will
stamp my foot at Tippecanoe, and the very earth shall shake.
TERRITORIAL EXPANSION.--_Hon. S. S. Cox, House of Representatives,
March 19th_, 1860.
Is there any American who wishes to consult European Powers as to
the propriety or policy of our territorial expansion? Is there any
one who fears a fatal blow from these Powers? We do not exist by the
sufferance of Europe, but by its insufferance. We did not grow to our
present greatness by its fostering care, but by its neglect, and in
spite of its malevolence. We do not ask its pardon for being born, nor
need we apologize to it for growing. It has endeavored to prevent even
the legitimate extension of our commerce, and to confine us to our own
continent. But if we can buy Cuba of Spain, it is our business with
Spain. If we have to take it, it is our business with Providence. If
we must save Mexico, and make its weakness our strength, we have no
account to render unto Europe or its dynasties.
If European Powers choose to expand their empire and energize their
people, we have no protests, no arms to prevent them. England may
push from India through the Himalayas to sell her calicoes to the
numberless people of Asia, and divide with France the empires of
India, Burmah, and China. Civilization does not lose by their
expansion. Russia may push her diplomacy upon Pekin, and her armies
through the Caucasus, and upon Persia and Tartary; she may even
plant her Greek cross again on the mosque of St. Sophia, and take
the Grecian Levant into her keeping as the head of its church and
civilization. France may plant her forts and arts upon the shores of
the Red Sea; complete the canalization of Suez; erect another Carthage
on the shores of the Mediterranean; bind her natural limits from
Mont Blanc, in Savoy, to Nice, upon the sea. Sardinia may become the
nucleus of the Peninsula, and give to Italy a name and a nationality.
Even Spain, proud and poor, may fight over again in Africa the
romantic wars with the Morescoes, by which she educated that chivalry
and adventure, which three centuries ago made her the mistress of
the New World. She may demand territory of Morocco, as she has, as
indemnity for the war. America has no inquiry to make, no protocol to
sign. These are the movements of an active age. They indicate health,
not disease--growth, not decay. They are links in the endless chain of
Providence. They prove the mutability of the most imperial of human
institutions; but, to the philosophic observer, they move by a law as
fixed as that which makes the decay of autumn the herald of spring.
They obey the same law by which the constellations change their places
in the sky. Astronomers tell us that the "southern cross," which
guarded the adventurer upon the Spanish main four centuries ago, and
which now can be seen, the most beautiful emblem of our salvation,
shining down through a Cuban and Mexican night,--just before the
Christian era, glittered in our northern heavens! The same GREAT
WILL, which knows no North and no South, and which is sending
again, by an irreversible law, the southern cross to our northern
skies, on its everlasting cycle of emigration--does it not control
the revolutions of nations, and the vicissitudes of empires? The
very stars in their courses are "Knights of the Golden Circle," and
illustrate the record of human advancement. They are the type of that
territorial expansion from which this American continent can not be
exempted without annihilation. The finger of Providence points to our
nation as the guiding star of this progress. Let him who would either
dusk its radiancy, or make it the meteor of a moment, cast again with
nicer heed our nation's horoscope.