Soon rested those who fought; but thou A friendless warfare! lingering long Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, yet faint thou not. Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; Yea, though thou lie upon the dust Die full of hope and manly trust, Another hand thy sword shall wield, ΙΟ 15 20 25 5 ΙΟ 15 20 25 COLUMBIA, THE GEM OF THE OCEAN (1843) BY DAVID T. SHAW AND THOMAS À BECKET O COLUMBIA, the gem of the ocean, The Home of the brave and the free, Chorus When borne by the red, white, and blue, When war winged its wide desolation And threatened the land to deform, The boast of the red, white, and blue. - Cho. The wine cup, the wine cup bring hither, May the wreaths they have won never wither, May the service united ne'er sever, But they to their colors prove true! The Army and Navy forever! Three cheers for the red, white, and blue! - Cho. Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; In the right with two or three. THE PRESENT CRISIS (1844) BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL [This poem was written in 1844, when the annexation of Texas was a topic of general discussion.] 5 WHEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time. 10 Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe, When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro; At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart, And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's heart. 15 So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill, Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill, And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod, Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod. For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right. And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land? Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is strong, And, albeit she wanders outcast now, I see around her throng Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. 5 ΙΟ 15 |