66

'Sign! if the next moment the gibbet's rope is around your neck. Sign! if the next moment this hall ring with the echo of the falling ax. Sign! by all your hopes in life or death, as husbands, as fathers, as men! Sign your names to that parchment!

"Yes! were my soul trembling on the verge of eternity, on the were this voice choking in the last struggle, I would still. with the last impulse of that soul, with the last gasp of that voice, implore you to remember the truth: God has given America to the free. Yes! as I sink down into the gloomy shadow of the grave, with my last breath I would beg of you to sign that parchment."

- GEORGE LIPPARD.

CONCORD HYMN

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;

That memory may their dead redeem,

When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare

The shaft we raise to them and thee.

- RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

NATHAN HALE

To drumbeat and heartbeat,
A soldier marches by ;
There is color in his cheek,
There is courage in his eye,

Yet to drumbeat and heartbeat
In a moment he must die.

By the starlight and the moonlight,
He seeks the Briton's camp;
He hears the rustling flag

And the armed sentry's tramp ;
And the starlight and the moonlight
His silent wanderings lamp.

With slow tread and still tread,
He scans the tented line;
And he counts the battery guns,

By the gaunt and shadowy pine;
And his slow tread and still tread
Gives no warning sign.

The dark wave, the plumed wave,
It meets his eager glance;
And it sparkles 'neath the stars,
Like the glimmer of a lance-
A dark wave, a plumed wave,
On an emerald expanse.

A sharp clang, a still clang,
And terror in the sound!
For the sentry, falcon eyed,

In the camp a spy hath found;
With a sharp clang, a steel clang,
The patriot is bound.

With a calm brow and a steady brow,

He listens to his doom;

In his look there is no fear,

Nor a shadowy trace of gloom; But with calm brow and steady brow, He robes him for the tomb.

In the long night, the still night,
He kneels upon the sod;
And the brutal guards withhold
E'en the solemn word of God!
In the long night, the still night,
He walks where Christ hath trod.

'Neath the blue morn, the sunny morn,

He dies upon the tree;

And he mourns that he can lose

But one life for liberty;

And in the blue morn, the sunny morn,
His spent wings are free.

But his last words, his message words,
They burn, lest friendly eye
Should read how proud and calm
A patriot could die.

With his last words, his dying words,
A soldier's battle cry.