78. TRIUMPHS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. — Rev. J. G. Lyons. Now gather all our Saxon bards, let harps and hearts be strung, To celebrate the triumphs of our own good Saxon tongue! For stronger far than hosts that march, with battle-flags unfurled, It goes with FREEDOM, THOUGHT and TRUTH, to rouse and rule the world. Stout Albion hears its household lays on every surf-worn shore, It tracks the loud, swift Oregon, through sunset valleys rolled, It kindles realms so far apart, that while its praise you sing, It quickens lands whose meteor lights flame in an Arctic sky, Go forth, and jointly speed the time, by good men prayed for long, wrong; When earth's oppressed and savage tribes shall cease to pine or roam, All taught to prize these English words :-FAITH, FREEDOM, HEAVEN, and HOME. 79. THE WATER-DRINKER. E. Johnson. O, WATER for me! bright water for me, It comes o'er the sense like a breeze from the sea, O, water, bright water, for me, for me! Fill to the brim! fill, fill to the brim; And wine for the tremulous debauchee! Fill again to the brim,- again to the brim! When over the hills, like a gladsome bride, As he freshens his wing in the cold, gray cloud. But when evening has quitted her sheltering yew, Her dusky meshes o'er land and sea, How gently, O sleep, fall thy poppies on me! 80. THE DAYS THAT ARE GONE. — Charles Mackay. WHO is it that mourns for the days that are gone, When his word was a statute, his nod was a law, And for aught but his "order" he cared not a straw? And a gibbet to hang a refractory boor? They were days when the sword settled questions of right, And Falsehood was first to monopolize might; When Law never dreamed it was good to relent, They were days when the Crowd had no freedom of speech, When the Few thought the Many mere workers for them, And the Many, poor fools! thought the treatment their due, No! The Present, though clouds o'er her countenance roll, 81. THE WORK-SHOP AND THE CAMP. -For a Mechanic Celebration. THE Camp has had its day of song: Are Freedom's heroes bred alone; More heroes true than War has known! Who drives the bolt, who shapes the steel, As he who sees a foeman reel In blood before his blow of might! The skill that conquers space and time, Let Labor, then, look up and see His craft no pith of honor lacks; Less honored than the woodman's axe! Nor deem that gold or outward height In tastes that breed their own delight. And may the time draw nearer still, When men this sacred truth shall heed: - Till life and death are understood. 82. THE WISE MAN'S PRAYER.-Dr. Samuel Johnson. INQUIRER, cease! petitions yet remain Which Heaven may hear; nor deem religion vain! But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice: PART SECOND. MARTIAL AND POPULAR. 1. SCIPIO TO HIS ARMY.— · Abridgment from Livy. Before the battle of Ticinus, B. C. 218, in which the Carthaginians, under Hannibal, were victorious. The speech of the latter, on the same occasion, follows. Nor because of their courage, O soldiers, but because an engagement is now inevitable, do the enemy prepare for battle. Two-thirds of their infantry and cavalry have been lost in the passage of the Alps. Those who survive hardly equal in number those who have perished. Should any one say, "Though few, they are stout and irresistible," I reply, Not so! They are the veriest shadows of men; wretches, emaciated with hunger, and benumbed with cold; bruised and enfeebled among the rocks and crags; their joints frost-bitten, their sinews stiffened with the snow, their armor battered and shivered, their horses lame and powerless. Such is the cavalry, such the infantry, against which you have to contend; not enemies, but shreds and remnants of enemies! And I fear nothing more, than that when you have fought Hannibal, the Alps may seem to have been beforehand, and to have robbed you of the renown of a victory. But perhaps it was fitting that the Gods themselves, irrespective of human aid, should commence and carry forward a war against a leader and a people who violate the faith of treaties; and that we, who next to the Gods have been most injured, should complete the contest thus commenced, and nearly finished. I would, therefore, have you fight, O soldiers, not only with that spirit with which you are wont to encounter other enemies, but with a certain indignation and resentment, such as you might experience if you should see your slaves suddenly taking up arms against you. We might have slain these Carthaginians, when they were shut up in Eryx, by hunger, the most dreadful of human tortures. We might have carried over our victorious fleet to Africa, and, in a few days, have destroyed Carthage, without opposition. We yielded to their prayers for pardon; we released them from the blockade; we made peace with them when conquered; and we afterwards held them under our protection, when they were borne down by the African war. return for these benefits, they come, under the leadership of a hotbrained youth, to lay waste our country. Ah! would that the contest on your side were now for glory, and not for safety! It is not In |