What though their angry cry is flung

Across the howling wave,

They smite the air with idle tongue
The gathering storm who brave;
Enough of speech! the trumpet rings;

Be silent, patient, calm,

God help them if the tempest swings
The pine against the palm!

Our toilsome years have made us tame;
Our strength has slept unfelt;

The furnace-fire is slow to flame
That bids our ploughshares melt;

'T is hard to lose the bread they win

To see the rusting turbines stand
Before the emptied flumes,

To fold the arms that flood the land

With rivers from their looms,

But harder still for those who learn

The truth forgot so long;

When once their slumbering passions burn,

The peaceful are the strong!

A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH.

The Lord have mercy on the weak,

And calm their frenzied ire,

And save our brothers ere they shriek,
"We played with Northern fire!"
The eagle hold his mountain height,-
The tiger pace his den!

Give all their country, each his right!
God keep us all! Amen!

281

BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER

CAROLINE.

SHE has gone,

-she has left us in passion and pride,

Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side!

She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow, And turned on her brother the face of a foe!

O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,

We can never forget that our hearts have been one,
Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name,
From the fountain of blood with the finger of flame!

You were always too ready to fire at a touch;
But we said, "She is hasty,—she does not mean much.”
We have scowled, when you uttered some turbulent
threat;

But Friendship still whispered, "Forgive and forget!"

BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT.

283

Has our love all died out? Have its altars grown cold? Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold? Then Nature must teach us the strength of the chain That her petulant children would sever in vain.

They may fight till the buzzards are gorged with their spoil,

Till the harvest grows black as it rots in the soil,

Till the wolves and the catamounts troop from their

caves,

And the shark tracks the pirate, the lord of the waves:

In vain is the strife! When its fury is past,

Their fortunes must flow in one channel at last,

As the torrents that rush from the mountains of snow Roll mingled in peace through the valleys below.

Our Union is river, lake, ocean, and sky:

Man breaks not the medal, when God cuts the die! Though darkened with sulphur, though cloven with

steel,

The blue arch will brighten, the waters will heal!

O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,

There are battles with Fate that can never be won!

The star-flowering banner must never be furled,

For its blossoms of light are the hope of the world!

Go, then, our rash sister! afar and aloof,

Run wild in the sunshine away from our roof;

But when your heart aches and your feet have grown

sore,

Remember the pathway that leads to our door!

March 25, 1861.