THE GRAVE OF PAYSON.

BY WILLIAM B. TAPPAN.

I STOOD, in silence and alone,
Just at the Sabbath shut of day,
Where, quietly, the modest stone
Told me that PAYSON's relics lay.
No gorgeous tale nor herald's arms
Astonished with their splendid lie,
Or hireling praise; — in Truth's meek charms
It said, "His record is on high."

I gazed around the burial spot,

That looks on Portland's spires below,
And on her thousands who are not,
Did sad yet useful thought bestow;
Here sleep they till the trumpet's tongue
Shall peal along a blazing sky;
Yet who of these the old and young,
May read his record then on high!

And near, I saw the early grave
Of him who fought at Tripoli;

Who would not live, the Moslem's slave,
Who fell, a martyr with the free.
And wrapt in Freedom's starry flag,
The chief who dared to "do or die;"
And England's son, who could not lag,
Whose deeds his country wrote on high.

What glory lit their spirit's track,
When from the gory deck they flew !
Could wishes woo the heroes back?
Say, did not fame their path pursue?
Oh, gently sleep the youthful brave

Who fall where martial clarions cry,
The men, entombed in earth or wave,
Whose blood-writ record is on high!

I turned again to Payson's clay,
And recollected well how bright
The radiance, far outshining day,
That robed his soaring soul in light.

What music stole awhile from heaven,
To charm away his parting sigh!
What wings to waft him home were given,
Whose holy record was on high!

And give me

trembling, said I then, Some place, my Saviour, where such dwell; And far above the pride of men,

And pomp of which the worldlings tell, Will be my lot. Come, haughty kings!

And ye who pass in glitter by,

And feel that ye are abject things,
Whose record is not found on high.

DUTIES OF AMERICAN CITIZENS.

BY LEVI WOODBURY.

WHILE meditating upon our own astonishing progress, as developed in history, and discriminating with care the origin alike of our perils and securities as a people, does it not behoove us to weigh well the importance of our present position? Not our position merely with regard to foreign powers. From them we have, by an early start and rapid progress in the cause of equal rights, long ceased to fear much injury, or to hope for very essential aid, in our further efforts for the thorough improvement of the condition of society in all that is useful or commendable. Nor our position, however the true causes may be distorted or denied

our elevated position in prosperity and honorable estimation, both at home and abroad. But it is our position, so highly responsible, as the only country where the growth of self-government seems fully to have ripened and to have become a model or example to other nations; or, as the case may prove, their scoff and scorn.

roes.

To falter here and now, would therefore probably be to cause the experiment of such a government to fail for ever. It is not sufficient, in this position, to loathe servitude, or to love liberty with all the enthusiasm of Plutarch's heBut we must be warned by our history how to maintain liberty; how to grasp the substance rather than the shadow; to disregard rhetorical flourishes, unless accompanied by deeds; not to be cajoled by holyday finery, or pledges enough to carpet the polls, where integrity and burning zeal do not exist to redeem them; nor to permit ill

vaunting ambition to volunteer and vaunt its professions of ability as well as willingness to serve the people against their own government, any more than demagogues, in a rougher mood, with a view to rob you, sacrilegiously, of those principles, or undermine with insidious pretensions, those equal institutions which your fathers bled to secure. Nor does true reform, however frequent in this position, and under those institutions, scarcely ever consist in violence, or what usually amounts to revolution, the sacred right of which, by force or rebellion, in extreme cases of oppression, being seldom necessary to be exercised here, because reform is one of the original elements of those institutions, and one of their great, peaceable, and prescribed objects. However the timid then may fear, or the wealthy denounce its progress, it is the principal safety-valve of our system, rather than an explosion to endanger or destroy it. We should also weigh well our delicate position as the sole country whither the discontented in all others resort freely, and while conforming to the laws, abide securely; and whither the tide of emigration, whether for good or evil, seems each year setting with increased force.

It behooves us to look our perils and difficulties, such as they are, in the face. Then, with the exercise of candor, calmness, and fortitude, being able to comprehend fully their character and extent, let us profit by the teachings of almost every page in our annals, that any defects under our existing system have resulted more from the manner of administering it than from its substance or form. We less need new laws, new institutions, or new powers, than we need, on all occasions, at all times and in all places, the requisite intelligence concerning the true spirit of our present ones; the high moral courage, under every hazard and against every offender, to execute with fidelity the authority already possessed; and the manly independence to abandon all supineness, irresolution, vacillation, and time-serving pusillanimity, and enforce our present mild system with that uniformity and steady vigor throughout, which alone

DUTIES OF AMERICAN CITIZENS.

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can supply the place of the greater severity of less free institutions. To arm and encourage us in renewed efforts to accomplish every thing on this subject which is desirable, our history constantly points her finger to a most efficient. resource, and indeed to the only elixir, to secure a long life to any popular government, in increased attention to useful education and sound morals, with the wise description of equal measures and just practices they inculcate on every leaf of recorded time. Before their alliance the spirit of misrule will always in time stand rebuked, and those who worship at the shrine of unhallowed ambition must quail. Storms in the political atmosphere may occasionally happen by the encroachments of usurpers, the corruption or intrigues of demagogues, or in the expiring agonies of faction, or by the sudden fury of popular frenzy; but with the restraints and salutary influences of the allies before described, these storms will purify as healthfully as they often do in the physical world, and cause the tree of liberty, instead of falling, to strike its roots deeper. In this struggle, the enlightened and moral possess also a power, auxiliary and strong, in the spirit of the age, which is not only with them, but onward, in every thing to ameliorate or improve. When the struggle assumes the form of a contest with power in all its subtlety, or with undermining and corrupting wealth, as it sometimes may, rather than with turbulence, sedition, or open aggression, by the needy and desperate, it will be indispensable to employ still greater diligence; to cherish earnestness of purpose, resoluteness in conduct; to apply hard and constant blows to real abuses rather than milkand-water remedies, and encourage not only bold, free, and original thinking, but determined action. In such a cause our fathers were men whose hearts were not accustomed to fail them through fear, however formidable the obstacles. Some of them were companions of Cromwell, and imbued deeply with his spirit and iron decision of character, in whatever they deemed right: "If Pope, and Spaniard, and devil, (said he,) all set themselves against us, though they