Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth
And turned and lighted his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched, with eager search,
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight,
A second lamp in the belfry burns.
A hurry of hoofs in the village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark,
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all; and yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He had left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides,
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town;
He heard the crowing of the cock
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river's fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock
When he came to the bridge in Concord town;
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.
You know the rest; in the books you have read,
How the British regulars fired and fled;
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields, to emerge again
Under the trees, at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere,
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,--
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the past,
Through all our history to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
BY SPECIAL REQUEST.
BY FRANK CASTLES.
_A Lady Standing with one Hand on a Chair in a Somewhat Amateurish
Attitude._
Our kind hostess has asked me to recite something, "by special request,"
but I really don't know what to do. I have only a very small _repertoire_,
and I'm afraid you know all my stock recitations. What shall I do?
(_Pause._) I have it; I'll give you something entirely original. I'll tell
you about my last experience of reciting, which really is the cause of my
being so nervous to-night. I began reciting about a year ago; I took
elocution lessons with Mr. ----; no, I won't tell you his name, I want to
keep him all to myself. I studied the usual things with him--the "Mercy"
speech from the "Merchant of Venice," and Juliet's "Balcony scene," but I
somehow never could imagine my fat, red-faced, snub-nosed old master
(there! I've told you who he was), I never could fancy him as an ideal
Romeo; he looked much more like Polonius, or the Ghost before he was a
ghost--I mean as he probably was in the flesh.
My elocution master told me that Shakespeare was not my forte, so I studied
some more modern pieces. He told me I was getting on very well--"one of my
most promising pupils," but I found that he said that to every one.
Well, it soon became known that I recited (one must have _some_ little
vices, you know, just to show up one's virtues). I received an invitation
from Lady Midas for a musical evening last Friday, and in a postscript, "We
hope you will favor us with a recitation." Very flattering, wasn't it?
I went there fully primed with three pieces--"The Lifeboat," by Sims, "The
Lost Soul," and Calverley's "Waiting." I thought that I had hit on a
perfectly original selection; but I was soon undeceived. There were a great
many people at Lady Midas', quite fifty, I should think, or perhaps two
hundred; but I'm very bad at guessing numbers. We had a lot of music. A
young man, with red hair and little twinkling light eyes, sang a song by De
Lara, but it did not sound as well as when I heard the composer sing it.
Then two girls played a banjo duet; then--no, we had another song first,
then a girl with big eyes and an ugly dress--brown nun's veiling with
yellow lace, and beads, and ribbons, and sham flowers and all sorts of
horrid things, so ugly, I'm sure it was made at home. Well--where was I?
Oh, yes!--she stood up and recited, what do you think? Why, "Calverley's
Waiting!" Oh! I was so cross when it came to the last verses; you remember
how they go (_imitating_)--
"'Hush! hark! I see a hovering form!
From the dim distance slowly rolled;
It rocks like lilies in a storm,
And oh! its hues are green and gold.
'It comes, it comes! Ah! rest is sweet,
And there is rest, my babe, for us!'
She ceased, as at her very feet
Stopped the St. John's Wood omnibus."
Well, when I heard that I felt inclined to cry. Just imagine how provoking;
one of the pieces I had been practicing for weeks past. Oh, it _was_
annoying! After that there was a violin solo, then another--no, then I had
an ice, such a nice young man, just up from Aldershot, _very_ young, but
_so_ amusing, and so full of somebody of "ours" who had won something, or
lost something, I could not quite make out which.
Then we came back to the drawing-room, and an elderly spinster, with curls,
sang, "Oh that we two were Maying," and the young man from Aldershot said,
"Thank goodness we aren't."
Afterward I had another ice, not because I wanted it, not a bit, but the
young man from Aldershot said he was _so_ thirsty.
Then I saw a youth with long hair and badly-fitting clothes. I thought he
was going to sing, but he wasn't; oh no! much worse! he recited. When I
heard the first words I thought I should faint (_imitating_):
"Been out in the lifeboat often? Aye, aye, sir, oft enough.
When it's rougher than this? Lor' bless you, this ain't what _we_ calls
rough."
How well I knew the lines! Wasn't it cruel? However, I had one hope
left--my "Lost Soul," a beautiful poem, serious and sentimental. The
aesthetic youth was so tedious that the young man from Aldershot asked me to
come into the conservatory, and really I was so vexed and disappointed that
I think I would have gone into the coal-cellar if he had asked me.
We went into the conservatory and had a nice long talk, all about----well,
it would take too long to tell you now, and besides it would not interest
_you_.
All at once mamma came in, and I felt rather frightened at first (I don't
know why), but she was laughing and smiling. "O, Mary," she said, "that
aesthetic young man has been so funny; they encored 'The Lifeboat,' so he
recited a very comic piece of poetry, that sent us all into fits of
laughter, it was called 'The Fried Sole,' a parody on 'The Lost Soul' that
you used to recite."
Alas! my last hope was wrecked; I could not read after that! I believe I
burst into tears. Anyhow, mamma hurried me off in a cab, and I cried all
the way home and--and--I forgot to say good-night to the young man from
Aldershot. Wasn't it a pity?
And you see that's why I don't like to recite anything to-night. (_Some one
from the audience comes up and whispers to her_). No! really, have I? How
stupid! I'm told that I've been reciting all this time. I am so sorry; will
you ever forgive me? I do beg pardon; I'll never do it again! (_Runs out._)
NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP.
[Found in the Knapsack of a Soldier of the Civil War
After He Had Been Slain in Battle.]
Near the camp-fire's flickering light,
In my blanket bed I lie,
Gazing through the shades of night
And the twinkling stars on high;
O'er me spirits in the air
Silent vigils seem to keep,
As I breathe my childhood's prayer,
"Now I lay me down to sleep."
Sadly sings the whip-poor-will
In the boughs of yonder tree;
Laughingly the dancing rill
Swells the midnight melody.
Foemen may be lurking near,
In the canyon dark and deep;
Low I breathe in Jesus' ear:
"I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep."
'Mid those stars one face I see--
One the Saviour turned away--
Mother, who in infancy
Taught my baby lips to pray;
Her sweet spirit hovers near
In this lonely mountain-brake.
Take me to her Saviour dear
"If I should die before I wake."
Fainter grows the flickering light,
As each ember slowly dies;
Plaintively the birds of night
Fill the air with sad'ning cries;
Over me they seem to cry:
"You may never more awake."
Low I lisp: "If I should die,
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take."
Now I lay me down to sleep;
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take.
THE AMERICAN UNION.
BY DANIEL WEBSTER.
I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the
prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our
Federal Union. It is to that union we owe our safety at home, and our
consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union that we are chiefly
indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country.
That union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe
school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered
finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign
influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and
sprang forth with newness of life.
Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and
its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and
wider, and our population spread further and further, they have not outrun
its protection, or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain
of national, social, and personal happiness.
I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the union, to see what might
lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances
of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be
broken asunder.
I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see
whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below;
nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this
government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how
the union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the
condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.
While the union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread
out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate
the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise!
God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind!
When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in
heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of
a once glorious union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a
land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!
Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous
ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still
full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original
lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured,
bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this
worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and
union afterward; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living
light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over
the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment,
dear to every true American heart, liberty and union now and forever, one
and inseparable!
THE POPPY LAND LIMITED EXPRESS.
BY EDGAR WADE ABBOT.
The first train leaves at six p. m.
For the land where the poppy blows;
The mother dear is the engineer,
And the passenger laughs and crows.
The palace car is the mother's arms;
The whistle, a low, sweet strain:
The passenger winks, and nods, and blinks,
And goes to sleep in the train!
At eight p. m. the next train starts
For the poppy land afar,
The summons clear falls on the ear:
"All aboard for the sleeping-car!"
But what is the fare to poppy land?
I hope it is not too dear.
The fare is this, a hug and a kiss,
And it's paid to the engineer!
So I ask of Him who children took
On His knee in kindness great,
"Take charge, I pray, of the trains each day,
That leave at six and eight.
"Keep watch of the passengers," thus I pray,
"For to me they are very dear,
And special ward, O gracious Lord,
O'er the gentle engineer."
MOTHER, HOME, AND HEAVEN.
Mother, Home, and Heaven, says a writer, are three of the most beautiful
words in the English language. And truly I think that they may be well
called so--what word strikes so forcibly upon the heart as mother? Coming
from childhood's sunny lips, it has a peculiar charm; for it speaks of one
to whom they look and trust for protection.
A mother is the truest friend we have; when trials heavy and sudden fall
upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends, who
rejoiced with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around
us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and
counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to
our hearts.
The kind voice of a mother has often been the means of reclaiming an erring
one from the path of wickedness to a life of happiness and prosperity.
The lonely convict, immured in his dreary cell, thinks of the innocent days
of his childhood, and feels that though other friends forsake him, he has
still a guardian angel watching over him; and that, however dark his sins
may have been, they have all been forgiven and forgotten by her.
Mother is indeed a sweet name, and her station is indeed a holy one; for in
her hands are placed minds, to be moulded almost at her will; aye, fitted
to shine--not much, it is true, on earth, compared, if taught aright, with
the dazzling splendor which awaits them in heaven.
Home! how often we hear persons speak of the home of their childhood. Their
minds seem to delight in dwelling upon the recollections of joyous days
spent beneath the parental roof, when their young and happy hearts were as
light and free as the birds who made the woods resound with the melody of
their cheerful voices. What a blessing it is, when weary with care, and
burdened with sorrow, to have a home to which we can go, and there, in the
midst of friends we love, forget our troubles and dwell in peace and
quietness.
Heaven! that land of quiet rest--toward which those, who, worn down and
tired with the toils of earth, direct their frail barks over the troubled
waters of life, and after a long and dangerous passage, find it--safe in
the haven of eternal bliss. Heaven is the home that awaits us beyond the
grave. There the friendships formed on earth, and which cruel death has
severed, are never more to be broken: and parted friends shall meet again,
never more to be separated.
It is an inspiring hope that, when we separate here on earth at the
summons of death's angel, and when a few more years have rolled over the
heads of those remaining, if "faithful unto death," we shall meet again in
Heaven, our eternal _home_, there to dwell in the presence of our Heavenly
Father, and go no more out forever.
PRAYING FOR SHOES.
BY PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.
_A True Incident._
On a dark November morning,
A lady walked slowly down
The thronged, tumultuous thoroughfare
Of an ancient seaport town.
Of a winning and gracious beauty,
The peace of her pure young face
Was soft as the gleam of an angel's dream
In the calms of a heavenly place.
Her eyes were fountains of pity,
And the sensitive mouth expressed
A longing to set the kind thoughts free
In music that filled her breast.
She met, by a bright shop window,
An urchin timid and thin,
Who, with limbs that shook and a yearning look,
Was mistily glancing in
At the rows and varied clusters
Of slippers and shoes outspread,
Some shimmering keen, but of sombre sheen,
Some purple and green and red.
His pale lips moved and murmured;
But of what, she could not hear.
And oft on his folded hands would fall
The round of a bitter tear.
"What troubles you, child?" she asked him,
In a voice like the May-wind sweet.
He turned, and while pointing dolefully
To his naked and bleeding feet,
"I was praying for shoes," he answered;
"Just look at the splendid show!
I was praying to God for a single pair,
The sharp stones hurt me so!"
She led him, in museful silence,
At once through the open door,
And his hope grew bright, like a fairy light,
That flickered and danced before!
And there he was washed and tended
And his small, brown feet were shod;
And he pondered there on his childish prayer,
And the marvelous answer of God.
Above them his keen gaze wandered,
How strangely from shop to shelf,
Till it almost seemed that he fondly dreamed
Of looking on God Himself.
The lady bent over, and whispered,
"Are you happier now, my lad?"
He started, and all his soul flashed forth
In a gratitude swift and glad.
"Happy?--Oh, yes!--I am happy!"
Then (wonder with reverence rife,
His eyes aglow, and his voice sunk low),
"Please tell me! Are you God's wife?"
RUM'S DEVASTATION AND DESTINY.
BY HON. WILLIAM SULLIVAN.
[In a discourse delivered before the Massachusetts
Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, on the
twenty-third of May, 1832, Hon. William Sullivan, one
of the vice-presidents of the society, gave an account
of the discovery of the art of distilling wine from
brandy, showing that it was made some five or six
hundred years ago, by an alchemist who was in search of
the means of acquiring "inexhaustible riches and
perpetual youth." After having spoken of the origin of
alcohol, the speaker imagines it to be "the office of
history to announce the future, instead of recording
the past," and assuming to stand beside the man who
made the discovery, delivered the following eloquent
address detailing the melancholy consequences of this
discovery, and forecasting the blessings which shall
result from the final overthrow of the rum fiend.]
In your researches after that which you should, at once, have known to be
impossible, by the laws of nature, you have opened a fountain of misery
which shall flow for ages. You have not contented yourself with pressing
out the juices of the fruits bestowed upon you, and converting these into
strong drink which you needed not,--but you have taken this strong drink,
and the harvest, which was given to you for food, and have drawn from these
a liquid which is not food and which will not nourish nor sustain your
earthly frame. This liquid shall be a curse upon you and your descendants.
It shall be known wherever the arts of civilization are known. You shall
call it the _elixir of life_. You shall believe it to be nutritious to the
body and gladdening to the soul. The love of it shall grow with the use of
it. It shall soothe the solitary hour and cheer the festive board. It shall
charm away your griefs, and be the cause of your rejoicings. It shall be
the inducement to communion and the bond of friendship. It shall be prized
alike by the high and the low. It shall be the joy of princes as well as of
the meanest of mortals. It shall be the stimulant to laborious toil, and
the reward for labor done. It shall be bought and sold, and make the dealer
therein rich. It shall yield abundant revenues to sovereignty. Hospitality
shall be dishonored in not offering it to the guest, and the guest shall be
disgraced in not receiving it at the hand of his host.
But----it shall visit your limbs with palsy; it shall extinguish the pride
of man; it shall make the husband hateful to the wife, and the wife
loathsome to the husband; it shall annihilate the love of offspring; it
shall make members of society a shame and a reproach to each other, and to
all among whom they dwell. It shall steal from the virtuous and the
honorable their good name, and shall make the strong and the vigorous to
totter along the streets of cities. It shall pervert the law of habit,
designed to strengthen you in the path of duty, and bind you in its iron
chain. It shall disgrace the judge upon the bench, the minister in the
sacred desk, and the senator in his exalted seat. It shall make your food
tasteless, your mouth to burn as with a fever, and your stomach to tremble
as with disease. It shall cause the besotted mother to overlay her newborn,
unconscious that it dies beneath the pressure of her weight; the natural
cravings of the infant shall make it strive to awaken her who has passed,
unheeded, to her last long sleep. The son shall hide his face that he may
not behold his father's depravity; and the father shall see the object of
his fondest hopes turn to a foul and bloated carcass, that hurries to the
grave. It shall turn the children of men into raving maniacs; and the
broken ties of blood and affection shall find no relief but in the friendly
coming of Death. As the seed which man commits to the earth comes forth
into that which he converts into spirit, so shall this product of his own
invention be as seed in his own heart, to bring forth violence, rapine and
murder. It shall cause man to shut up his fellow-man in the solitude of the
grated cell. The prisoner shall turn pale and tremble, in his loneliness,
at the presence of his own thoughts; he shall come forth to die, in cold
blood, by the hand of his fellow, with the spectacle of _religious homage
on a scaffold_, and amid the gaze of curious thousands. Poverty shall be
made squalid and odious, even so that Charity shall turn away her face in
disgust. It shall attract the pestilence that walks, even at noon-day, in
darkness, to the very vitals of the drunkard, as carrion invites the
far-sighted birds of prey. The consumer of spirit shall be found dead in
the highway, with the exhausted vessel by his side. Yea, the drunkard shall
kindle a fire in his own bosom which shall not depart from him till he is
turned to ashes. The dropsical drunkard shall die in his delirium, and the
fluid which has gathered in his brain shall smell like spirit, and like
spirit shall burn. A feeble frame, an imbecile mind, torturing pain and
incurable madness shall be of the inheritance which drunkards bequeath, to
run with their blood to innocent descendants.
The wise men, who assemble in the halls; of legislation, shall be blind to
this ruin, desolation, and misery. Nay, they shall license the sale of this
poison, and shall require of dignified magistrates to certify how much
thereof shall be sold for the "PUBLIC GOOD."
This minister of woe and wretchedness shall roam over the earth at
pleasure. It shall be found in every country of the Christian; it shall go
into every city, into every village, and into every house. But it shall not
visit the country of the heathen, nor spread woe and wretchedness among
them, but by the hands of Christians.
The light of reason shall at length break upon the benighted and afflicted
world. The truth shall be told. It shall be believed. The causes of
calamity shall be unveiled. The friends of the human race shall speak and
be respected. Rational man shall be ashamed of his follies and his crimes,
and humbled to the dust that he was so long ignorant of their origin.
Governments shall be ashamed that they so long tolerated and sustained the
most costly and cruel foe that man has ever encountered. Avarice itself
shall be conscience-stricken and penitent. It shall remain where nature
placed it for use; and it shall be odious in the sight of _Heaven_ and of
_Earth_ to convert the fruits of the soil into poison.
THE DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT.
BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.