LOYALTY AND HEROISM. THE NATIONAL FLAG. CHARLES SUMNER. THERE is the national flag! He must be cold, indeed, who can look upon its folds rippling in the breeze without pride of country. If he be in a foreign land, the flag is companionship and country itself with all its endearments. Who, as he sees it, can think of a State merely? Whose eyes, once fastened upon its radiant . trophies, can fail to recognize the image of the whole nation? It has been called a "floating piece of poetry," and yet I know not if it have an intrinsic beauty beyond other ensigns. Its highest beauty is in what it symbolizes. It is because it represents all, that all gaze at it with delight and reverence. It is a piece of bunting lifted in the air, but it speaks sublimely, and every part has a voice. Its stripes of alternate red and white proclaim the original union of thirteen States to maintain the Declaration of Independence. Its stars of white on a field of blue proclaim that union of States constituting our national constellation, which receives a new star with every new State. The two 3 together signify union, past and present. The very colors have a language which was officially recognized by our fathers. White is for purity, red for valor, blue for justice; and all together, bunting, stripes, stars and colors blazing in the sky, make the flag of our country --to be cherished by all our hearts, to be upheld by all our hands. STAND BY THE FLAG! JOHN NICHOLs Wilder. STAND by the flag! Its stars, like meteors gleaming, Stand by the flag! Its stripes have streamed in glory, Stand by the flag! On land and ocean billow With their last blessing, passed it on to you. Stand by the flag! Immortal heroes bore it Through sulphurous smoke, deep moat and armed defence; And their imperial Shades still hover o'er it, A guard celestial from Omnipotence. |