Swept the strong battle-breakers o'er the green

sodded acres

Of the plain; And louder, louder, louder, cracked the black

gunpowder, Cracking amain !

When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, Child of the Sun ! to thee 't is given

To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle-stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,

The harbingers of victory !

Now like smiths at their forges
Worked the red St. George's

Cannoneers ;
And the “villanous saltpetre”
Rung a fierce, discordant metre

Round their ears ;
As the swift

Storm-drift,
With hot sweeping anger, came the horseguards'

clangor

On our flanks. Then higher, higher, higher, burned the old-fash

ioned fire Through the ranks !

Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high !
When speaks the signal-trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on,
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn,
And, as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall shrink beneath Each gallant arm that strikes below

That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home,

By angel hands to valor given,
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven. Forever float that standard sheet !

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

When Freedom, from her mountain height,

Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there!
She mingleil with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light,
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land !
Majestic monarch of the cloud !

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
To hear the tempest-trumpings loud,
And see the lightning lances driven,

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. O say, can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last

gleaming ? Whose broad stripes and bright stars through

the perilous fight,

O, what a shout there went
From the black regiment !

Charge !" Trump and drum awoke ;
Onward the bondmen broke;
Bayonet and sabre-stroke
Vainly opposed their rush.
Through the wild battle's crush,
With but one thought aflush,
Driving their lords like chaff,
In the guns' mouths they laugh ;
Or at the slippery brands
Leaping with open hands,
Down they tear man and horse,
Down in their awful course ;
Trampling with bloody heel
Over the crashing steel,
All their eyes forward bent,
Rushed the black regiment.
“Freedom !” their battle-cry,
“ Freedom ! or leave to die!"
Ah ! and they meant the word,
Not as with us 't is heard,
Not a mere party shout;
They gave their spirits out,
Trusted the end to God,
And on the gory sod
Rolled in triumphant blood
Glad to strike one free blow,
Whether for weal or woe ;
Glad to breathe one free breath,
Though on the lips of death ;
Praying, alas ! in vain !
That they might fall again,
So they could once more see
That burst to liberty !
This was what “freedom" lent
To the black regiment.
Hundreds on hundreds fell;
But they are resting well ;
Scourges and shackles strong
Never shall do them wrong.
0, to the living few,
Soldiers, be just and true :
Hail them as comrades tried ;
Fight with them side by side ;
Never, in field or tent,
Scorn the black regiment !

GEORGE HENRY BOKER.

SHERIDAN'S RIDE.

Up from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door,

THE LITTLE CLOUD.

(Written in 1853-1

As when, on Carmel's sterile steep,

The ancient prophet buwed the knee, And seven times sent his servant forth

To look toward the distant sea;

There came at last a little cloud,

Scarce larger than the human hand, Spreading and swelling till it broke

In showers on all the herbless land.

And hearts were glad, and shouts went up,

And praise to Israel's mighty God, As the sear hills grew bright with flowers,

And verdure clothed the valley sod.

Even so our eyes have waited long;

But now a little cloud appears, Spreading and swelling as it glides

Onward into the coming years.

Bright cloud of Liberty ! full soon,

Far stretching from the ocean strand, Thy glorious folds shall spread abroad,

Encircling our beloved land.

Like the sweet rain on Judah's hills,

The glorious boon of love shall fall, And our bond millions shall arise,

As at an angel's trumpet-call.

Then shall a shout of joy go up,

The wild, glad cry of freedom come From hearts long crushed by cruel hands,

And songs from lips long sealed and dumb.

And every bondman's chain be broke,

And every soul that moves abroad In this wide realm shall know and feel The blessed Liberty of God.

JOHN HOWARD BRYANT.

MARCO BOZZARIS.

(Marco Bozzaris, the Epaminondas of modern Greece, fell in a night attack upon the Turkish camp at Laspi, the site of the an cient Platza, August 20, 1823, and expired in the muoment of victory. His last words were : "To die for liberty is a pleasure, and not a pain.")

At midnight, in his guarded tent,

The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,

Should tremble at his power. In dreams, through camp and court, he bore The trophies of a conqueror ;

In dreams his song of triumph heard ;

Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word,
And in its hollow tones are heard

The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come when his task of fame is wrought ;
Come with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought ;

Come in her crowning hour, — and then
Thy sunken eye's unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight

Of sky and stars to prisoned men ;
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land ;
Thy summons welcome as the cry
That told the Indian isles were nigh

To the world-seeking Genoese,
When the land-wind, from woods of palm,
And orange-groves, and fields of balm,

Blew o'er the Haytian seas.

Then wore his monarch's signet-ring,
Then pressed that monarch's throne - a king ;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,

As Eden's garden bird.
At midnight, in the forest shades,

Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,

Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood,

On old Platæa's day ;
And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arms to strike, and soul to dare,

As quick, as far, as they.
An hour passed on, the Turk awoke :

That bright dream was his last ;
He woke - to hear his sentries shriek,

"Toarms ! they come! the Greek! the Greek !" He woke -- to die midst flame, and smoke, And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke,

And death-shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud ;
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,

Bozzaris cheer his band :
"Strike — till the last armed foe expires ;
Strike — for your altars and your fires ;
Strike -- for the green graves of your sires,

God, and your native land !"
They fought like brave men, long and well ;

They piled that ground with Moslem slain : They conquered but Bozzaris fell,

Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their proud hurrah,

And the red field was won ;
Then saw in death his eyelids close
('almly, as to a night's repose.

Like flowers at set of sun.
Come to the bridal chamber, death,

Come to the mother's, when she feels,
For the first time, her first-born's breath ;

Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke ;
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm ;
Come when the heart beats high and warm,

With banquet song and dance and wine, -
And thou art terrible ; the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know, or dream, or fear

Of agony, are thine.
But to the hero, when his sword

ilus won the battle for the free,

Bozzaris! with the storied brave

Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee; there is no prouder grave,

Even in her own proud clime. She wore no funeral weeds for thee,

Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume, Like torn branch from death's leafless tree, In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,

The heartless luxury of the tomb. But she remembers thee as one Long loved, and for a season gone. For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birthday bells; Of thee her babes' first lisping tells ; For thine her evening prayer is said At palace couch and cottage bed. Her soldier, closing with the foe, Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow; His plighted maiden, when she fears For him, the joy of her young years, Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears.

And she, the mother of thy boys, Though in her eye and faded cheek Is read the grief she will not speak,

The memory of her buried joys, –
And even she who gave thee birth,
Will, by her pilgrim-circled hearth,

Talk of thy doom without a sigh ;
For thou art freedon's now, and fame's,
One of the few, the immortal names

That were not born to die.