Page images
PDF
EPUB

thankful, and cry to Charles Stuart, O king, live for ever!— for he has but cast us into a fiery furnace and a lion's den.

In truth, friends, Mr. Renwick is quite right. This feeling of indignation against our oppressors is a most imprudent thing. If we desire to enjoy our own contempt, to deserve the derision of men, and to merit the abhorrence of Heaven, let us yield ourselves to all that Charles Stuart and his sect require. We can do nothing better, nothing so meritorious, -nothing by which we can reasonably hope for punishment here, and condemnation hereafter. But if there is one man at this meeting,-I am speaking not of shapes and forms, but of feelings,--if there is one here that feels as men were wont to feel, he will draw his sword, and say with me, Woe to the house of Stuart !-Woe to the oppressors!--Blood for blood!--Judge and avenge our cause, O Lord'

Ex. CXCIV.-ST. JOHN

G. WHITTIER.

[The events recounted in the following ballad, occurred in "Acadia, about the middle of the seventeenth century. Charles St. Estienne, Lord De La Tour, a French officer, and a Protestant, had his fortified seat at the mouth of St John's river. His antagonist, D'Aulney Charnisy, of the same nation, but a Roman Catholic, occupied a fort at the mouth of the Penobscot, or ancient Pentagoet. The feud between these nobles was inveterate and deadly. D'Aulney, taking advantage of a temporary absence of Estienne, attacked the castle of his rival, and, after a brave resistanee, by Lady La Tour, took it by assault. The captive lady, within a few days, died of grief, before the return of her husband.]

"To the winds give our banner!
Bear homeward again!"

Cried the lord of Acadia,

Cried Charles of Estienne;

From the prow of his shallop
He gazed, as the sun,
From its bed in the ocean
Streamed up the St. John.

O'er the blue western waters
That shallop had passed,
Where the mists of Penobscot
Clung damp on the mast.

St. Saviour* had looked

On the heretic sail,

As the songs of the Huguenot
Rose on the gale.

The pale, ghostly fathers
Remembered her well,

And had cursed her while passing,
With taper and bell;
But the men of Monhegan,t

Of papists abhorred,

Had welcomed and feasted

The heretic lord.

They had loaded his shallop
With dun-fish and ball,
With stores for his larder
And steel for his wall.
Pemequid, from her bastions.
And turrets of stone,
Had welcomed his coming
With banner and gun.

And the prayer of the elders
Had followed his way,
As homeward he glided
Down Pentecost bay.
O, well sped La Tour!

For, in peril and pain,
His lady kept watch

For his coming again.

O'er the Isle of the Pheasant
The morning sun shone,
On the plane-trees which shaded
The shores of St. John.
"Now, why from yon battlements
Speaks not my love?

Why waves there no banner

My fortress above ?"

A Jesuit settlement on the island of Mount Desert.

The isle of Monhegan, one of the earliest English settlements on the coast of Maine.

Dark and wild, from his deck
Estienne gazed about,
On fire-wasted dwellings,
And silent redoubt:
From the low, shattered walls
Which the flame had o’errun,
There floated no banner,
There thundered no gun!

But beneath the low arch
Of its doorway there stood
A pale priest of Rome,

In his cloak and his hood.
With the bound of a lion,

La Tour sprang to land,— On the throat of the Papist He fastened his hand.

"Speak, son of the Woman
Of scarlet and sin!

What wolf has been prowling
My castle within ?"

From the grasp of the soldier
The Jesuit broke,-

Half in scorn, half in sorrow,
He smiled as he spoke:

"No wolf, Lord of Estienne,
Has ravaged thy hall,
But thy red-handed rival,
With fire, steel, and ball!
On an errand of mercy
I hitherward came,
While the walls of thy castle
Yet spouted with flame.

"Pentagoet's dark vessels
Were moored in the bay,
Grim sea-lions, roaring
Aloud for their prey."
"But what of my lady?"
Cried Charles of Estienne:

"On the shot-crumbled turret
Thy lady was seen :

[blocks in formation]

Oh! the loveliest of heavens
Hung tenderly o'er him,

There were waves in the sunshine,
And green isles before him;
But a pale hand was beckoning
The Huguenot on;

And in blackness and ashes
Behind was St. John!

Ex. CXCV. PERSONAL AND POLITICAL CHARACTER

OF FRANKLIN.

E. H. CHAPIN.

FRANKLIN foresaw the greatness of his country; its rapid and marvelous growth. Writing to Gen. Washington, he says, "I must soon quit this scene, but you may live to see our country flourish, as it will, mightily and rapidly, after the war is over; like a field of young Indian corn, which long fair weather and sunshine has enfeebled and discolored, and while in that weak state, by a thunder gust of violent wind, hail, and rain, seems to be threatened with absolute destruction; yet, the storm being past, it waves in fresh verdure, shoots up with double vigor, and delights the eye, not of its owner only, but of every observing traveler." In less than a century," said he, speaking of the great country back of the Appalachian mountains, "in less than a century, it must surely become a populous and powerful domain."

66

He saw, in the grand outlines of prophecy, what we see now, partly in open vision, and alas, partly only in glimpses of hope. He saw the great West filling up with swarming millions, working out the destinies of a mighty empire, and the latest issues of history. He saw the splendid achievements of industry and art, the thriving towns, the rivers and lakes alive with commerce, the broad wilderness covered with waves of wheat. But did he also see the fearful struggle and the dark uncertainty-the re-baptism of Liberty in the blood of her own children-passing again through the ordeal of the Revolution, but passing through it with tenfold suffering? And looking further than we can behold, did he see her turning back, cast out, and stoned, and beaten-or still moving grandly westward, with light and plenty in her

« PreviousContinue »