Labor is health! Lo, the husbandman reaping, How through his veins goes the life-current leaping! How his strong arm in its stalworth pride sweeping, True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides. Labor is wealth, - in the sea the pearl groweth ; Rich the queen's robe from the cocoon floweth ; From the fine acorn the strong forest bloweth ; Temple and statue the marble block hides. Droop not! though shame, sin, and anguish are round thee! Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee! Look to the pure heaven smiling beyond thee ! Let thy great deed be thy prayer to thy God. FRANCES S. OSGOOD. THE POOR MAN'S LABOR. My mother sighed, the stream of pain Flowed fast and chilly o'er her brow; "My pains are o'er, behold your son." "Thank Heaven, sweet partner," he replied; "The poor boy's labor's then begun." Alas! the hapless life she gave By fate was doomed to cost her own ; A stranger wild beneath the sun, No parent's hand, with pious care, -- My childhood's devious steps to guide; Or bid my venturous youth beware The griefs that smote on every side. Thy sacul leaves, Jan Fardon flower, Shale ever "float" on dome and terver To all their hearwey Colors Tue Then hail the banner of the feel, Oliver Wendell Hommes POEMS OF PATRIOTISM AND FREEDOM. BREATHES THERE THE MANBREATHES there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land ! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand ! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. SIR WALTER SCOTT. MY COUNTRY. THERE is a land, of every land the pride, Though Heaven alone records the tear, And Fame shall never know her story, Her heart has shed a drop as dear As e'er bedewed the field of glory! II. The wife who girds her husband's sword, Mid little ones who weep or wonder, And bravely speaks the cheering word, What though her heart be rent asunder, Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear The bolts of death around him rattle, Hath shed as sacred blood as e'er Was poured upon the field of battle! III. The mother who conceals her grief While to her breast her son she presses, Then breathes a few brave words and brief, Kissing the patriot brow she blesses, With no one but her secret God To know the pain that weighs upon her, Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod Received on Freedom's field of honor! THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. THE DEATH OF LEONIDAS. | A host glared on the hill; a host glared by the bay ; But the Greeks rushed onward still, like ieopards in their play. The air was all a yell, and the earth was all a flame, Where the Spartan's bloody steel on the silken turbans came; And still the Greek rushed on where the fiery torrent rolled, Till like a rising sun shone Xerxes' tent of gold. They found a royal feast, his midnight banquet, there; And the treasures of the East lay beneath the Doric spear. Then sat to the repast the bravest of the brave! That feast must be their last, that spot must be their grave. Up rose the glorious rank, to Greece one cup poured high, Then hand in hand they drank, "To immortality!" Fear on King Xerxes fell, when, like spirits from the tomb, With shout and trumpet knell, he saw the warriors come. But down swept all his power, with chariot and with charge; Spartan targe. It was the wild midnight, - a storm was on the Down poured the arrows' shower, till sank the sky; The lightning gave its light, and the thunder Thus fought the Greek of old! thus will he fight echoed by. again! The torrent swept the glen, the ocean lashed the Shall not the selfsame mould bring forth the self |