Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

you're a square man, pard. I like you, and I'll lick any man that don't. I'll lick him till he can't tell himself from a last year's corpse! Put it there!"

[Another fraternal handshake-and exit.]

The obsequies were all that "the boys" could desire. Such funeral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The plumed hearse, the dirge-breathing brass bands, the closed marts of business, the flags drooping at half-mast, the long plodding procession of uniformed secret societies, military battalions and fire companies, craped engines, carriages of officials and citizens in vehicles and on foot, attracted multitudes of spectators to the sidewalks, roofs and windows; and for years afterward, the degree of grand eur attained by any civic display was determined by com. parison with Buck Fanshaw's funeral.-MARK TWAIN.

ARNOLD WINKELRIED.

The utmost spirit should be preserved in this piece throughout. Elevate the pitch upon the command. Read rapidly.

AKE way for liberty!" he cried

"MAKE

Made way for liberty, and died!

In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,
A living wall, a human wood;
Impregnable their front appears,
All horrent with projected spears.
Opposed to these, a hovering band
Contended for their fatherland,

Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke

From manly necks the ignoble yoke;

Marshaled once more at freedom's call,

They came to conquer or to fall.

And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath;
The fire of conflict burned within;
The battle trembled to begin:

Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for assault was nowhere found;
Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed,
The unbroken line of lances blazed;
That line 't were suicide to meet,
And perish at their tyrants' feet.
How could they rest within their graves,
To leave their homes the haunts of slaves?
Would they not feel their children tread,
With clanking chains, above their head?

It must not be this day, this hour,
Annihilates the invader's power!
All Switzerland is in the field-
She will not fly; she can not yield;
She must not fall; her better fate
Here gives her an immortal date.
Few were the numbers she could boast,
every freeman was a host,

But

And felt as 't were a secret known

That one should turn the scale alone,

While each unto himself was he

On whose sole arm hung victory.

It did depend on one, indeed;
Behold him-Arnold Winkelried!
There sounds not to the trump of Fame
The echo of a nobler name.

Unmarked, he stood amid the throng,
In rumination deep and long,

Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o'er his face;
And, by the motion of his form,
Anticipate the bursting storm;

And, by the uplifting of his brow,

Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.

But 'twas no sooner thought than done—
The field was in a moment won!
"Make way for liberty!" he cried,
Then ran, with arms extended wide,
As if his dearest friend to clasp;
Ten spears he swept within his grasp.
"Make way for liberty!" he cried;

Their keen points crossed from side to side;
He bowed among them like a tree,
And thus made way for liberty.

Swift to the breach his comrades fly"Make way for liberty!" they cry,

And through the Austrian phalanx dart,
As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart;
While, instantaneous as his fall,

Rout, ruin, panic seized them all.

An earthquake could not overthrow
A city with a surer blow.

Thus Switzerland again was free-
Thus death made way for liberty.

JAMES MONTGOMERY

THE EAST AND THE WEST ONE.

WHAT

THAT will become of the West if her prosperity rushes up to such a majesty of power, while those great institutions of learning and religion linger which are necessary to form the mind, and the conscience, and the heart of that vast world? It must not be permitted. And yet what is done must be done quickly; for population will not wait, and commerce will not cast anchor, and manufactures will not shut off the steam nor shut down the gate, and agriculture, pushed by millions of freemen on their fertile soil, will not withhold her corrupting abundance.

We must educate! we must educate! or we must perish by our own prosperity. If we do not, short from the cradle to the grave will be our race. If, in our haste to be rich and mighty, we outrun our literary and religious institutions, they will never overtake us, or only come up after the battle of liberty is fought and lost, as spoils to grace the victory, and as resources of inexorable despotism for the perpetuity of our bondage. And let no man at the East quiet himself and dream of liberty whatever may become of the West. Our alliance of blood, and political institutions, and common interests, is such that we can not stand aloof in the hour of her calamity, should it ever come. Her destiny is our destiny; and the day that her gallant ship goes down, our little boat sinks in the vortex!

I would add, as a motive to immediate action, that if we do fail in our great experiment of self-government, our destruction will be as signal as the birthright abandoned, the mercies abused, and the provocation offered to beneficent Heaven. The descent of desolation will correspond with the past elevation. No punishments of

Heaven are so severe as those for mercies abused; and no instrumentality employed in their infliction is so dreadful as the wrath of man. No spasms are like the spasms of expiring liberty, and no wailings such as her convulsions extort. It took Rome three hundred years to die; and our death, if we perish, will be as much more terrific as our intelligence and free institutions have given to us more bone and sinew and vitality. May God hide me from the day when the dying agonies of my country shall begin! O thou beloved land, bound together by the ties of brotherhood, and common interest, and perils, liv forever-one and undivided!

16

[ocr errors]

LYMAN BEECHER.

FIRST APPEARANCE IN TYPE.

[Read as if unconscious of human presence.]

AH, here it is! I'm famous now;

An author and a poet,

It really is in print. Hurrah!
How proud I'll be to show it.

And gentle Anna! what a thrill

Will animate her breast,

To read these ardent lines, and know

To whom they are addressed.

'Why, bless my soul! here's something wrong;

What can the paper mean,

By talking of the 'graceful brook,'

That' ganders o'er the green?'

And here's a t instead of r,

Which makes it 'tippling rill,'

We'll seek the 'shad' instead of 'shade,"

And 'hell' instead of 'hill.'

« ZurückWeiter »