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7.

Ah! well her iron ribs are knit, whose thunders strive to quell The bellowing throats, the blazing lips that pealed the Armada's

knell!

The mist was cleared, a wreath of stars rose o'er the crimsoned

swell,

And wavering from its haughty peak, the cross of England fell!

8.

O, trembling Faith! though dark the morn, a heavenly torch is

thine;

While feebler races melt away, and paler orbs decline,

Still shall the fiery pillar's ray along thy pathway shine,

To light the chosen tribe that sought this Western Palestine!

9.

I see the living tide roll on, it crowns with flaming towers

The icy capes of Labrador, the Spaniard's "land of flowers;" It streams beyond the splintered ridge that parts the Northern

showers

From eastern rock to sunset wave the Continent is ours! OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

V.

A

81. THE ROCK OF THE PILGRIMS.

ROCK in the wilderness welcomed our sires,

From bondage far over the dark rolling sea;
On that holy altar they kindled the fires,

Jehovah, which glow in our bosoms for Thee.
2. Thy blessings descended in sunshine and shower,
Or rose from the soil that was sown by Thy hand;
The mountain and valley rejoiced in Thy power,

And Heaven encircled and smiled on the land.
3. The Pilgrims of old an example have given
Of mild resignation, devotion, and love,

Which beams like a star in the blue vault of heaven,
A beacon-light hung in their mansion above.

4. In church and cathedral we kneel in our prayer—
Their temple and chapel were valley and hill:

But God is the same in the aisle or the air,
And He is the Rock that we lean upon

still. MORRIS.

GEORGE P. MORRIS, the popular song-writer, was born at Philadelphia, in 1801. He commenced his literary career by contributions to the journals at the early age of fifteen. In 1823, with Mr. Woodworth, he established the "New York Mirror," a weekly miscellany, which was conducted with much taste and ability for nearly nineteen years. In conjunction with Mr. Willis, he reestablished "The Mirror" in 1843, which was soon after succeeded by "The Home Journal," which he aided in conducting until a short time before his death. In 1827, his play, in five acts, entitled "Brier Cliff, a tale of the American Revolution," was brought out by Mr. Wallack, and acted forty nights successively. So great was its popularity, that it was played at four theaters in New York on the same evening, to full houses, and yielded its author a profit of three thousand five hundred dollars. The last complete edition of his works appeared in 1860. He died in New York, July 6th, 1864,

F

VI.

82. ADVANTAGES OF ADVERSITY.

ROM the dark portals of the star-chamber, and in the stern text of the acts of uniformity, the Pilgrims received a commission, more efficient than any that ever bōre the royal seal. Their banishment to Holland was fortunate; the decline of their little company in the strange land was fortunate; the difficulties which they experienced in getting the royal consent to banish themselves to this wilderness were fortunate; all the tears and heart-breakings of that ever memorable parting at Delfthaven' had the happiest influence on the rising destinies of New England. All this purified the ranks of the settlers. These rough touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncertain, selfish spirits. They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying expedition, and required of those who engaged in it to be so too. They cast a broad shadow of thought and seriousness over the cause; and, if this sometimes deepened into melancholy and bitterness, can we find no apology for such a human weakness?

2. It is sad, indeed, to reflect on the disasters which the little band of Pilgrims encountered; sad to see a portion of them, the prey of unrelenting cupidity, treacherously embarked in an unsound, unseaworthy ship, which they are soon obliged to abandon, and crowd themselves into one vessel; one hundred persons, besides the ship's company, in a vessel of one hundred and sixty tons. One is touched at the story of the long, cold, and

1 Dělft ha' ven, a fortified town in South Holland (now Belgium), between Rotterdam and Schiedam. At

this place the Pilgrims of New England took their last farewell of their European friends.

weary autumnal passage; of the landing on the inhospitable rocks at this dismal season; where they are deserted, before long, by the ship which had brought them, and which seemed their only hold upon the world of fellow-men, a prey to the elements and to want, and fearfully ignorant of the numbers, the power, and the temper of the savage tribes, that filled the unexplored continent, upon whose verge they had ventured.

3. But all this wrought together for good. These trials of wandering and exile, of the ocean, the winter, the wilderness, and the savage foe, were the final assurances of success. It was these that put far away from our fathers' cause all patrician softness, all hereditary claims to preeminence. No effeminate nobility crowded into the dark and austere ranks of the Pilgrims. No Carr nor Villiers' would lead on the ill-provided band of despised Puritans. No well-endowed clergy were on the alert to quit their cathedrals, and set up a pompous hierarchy in the frozen wilderness. No craving governors were anxious to be sent over to our cheerless El Dorados' of ice and snow.

4. No; they could not say they had encouraged, pătronized, or helped the Pilgrims: their own cares, their own labors, their own councils, their own blood, contrived all, achieved all, bōre all, sealed all. They could not afterward fairly pretend to reap where they had not strewn ; and, as our fathers reared this broad and solid fabric with pains and watchfulness, unaided, barely tolerated, it did not fall when the favor, which had always been withholden, was changed into wrath; when the arm, which had never supported, was raised to destroy.

5. Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower' of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future State, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore.

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6. I see them now scantily supplied with provisions; crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison; delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route,--and now driven in fury before the raging tempèst, on the high and giddy waves. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sounds of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly, from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats, with deadening, shivering weight, against the staggered vessel.

7. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth,-weak and weary from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their shipmaster for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes.

8. Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes, enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures of other times, and find the parallel of this.

9. Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and children; was it hard labor and spare meals; was it disease; was it the tomahawk; was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments at the recollection of the loved and left beyond the sea;-was it some, or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible, that, from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious? EDWARD EVERETT,

EDWARD EVERETT, an American statesman, orator, and man of letters, was born in Dorchester, near Boston, Mass., April 11th, 1794. He entered Harvard College in 1807, where he graduated with the highest honors at the early age of seventeen. He studied theology; was settled as pastor over the Brattle Street Church in Boston; and in 1815, elected Greek Professor at Harvard College. He now visited Europe, where he devoted four years to study and travel, and made the acquaintance of Scott, Byron, Campbell, Jeffrey, and other noted persons. He was subsequently a member of both houses of Congress, Governor of Massachusetts, Embassador to England, President of Harvard College, and Secretary of State. As a scholar, rhetorician, and orator, he has had but few equals. Through his individual efforts, chiefly as lecturer, the sum of about $90,000 was realized and paid over to the Mount Vernon fund, and sundry charitable associations. He died in January, 1865.

2.

VII.

83. THE GRAVES OF THE PATRIOTS.

ERE rest the great and good. Here they repose

HE

After their generous toil. A sacred band,

They take their sleep together, while the year

Comes with its early flowers to deck their graves,
And gathers them again, as Winter frowns.
Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre-green sods
Are all their monument, and yet it tells
A nobler history than pillared piles,

Or the eternal pyramids.

They need

No statue nor inscription to reveal

Their greatness. It is round them; and the joy
With which their children tread the hallowed ground

That holds their venerated bones, the peace

That smiles on all they fought for, and the wealth
That clothes the land they rescued-these, though mute
As feeling ever is when deepest-these

Are monuments more lasting than the fanes
Reared to the kings and demigods of old.

3. Touch not the ancient elms, that bend their shade
Over their lowly graves; beneath their boughs
There is a solemn darkness even at noon,
Suited to such as visit at the shrine
Of serious Liberty. No factious voice
Called them unto the field of generous fame,
But the pure consecrated love of home.
No deeper feeling sways us, when it wakes

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