A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH. NATIONAL FAST, JANUARY 4, 1861. WE sing "Our Country's" song to-night We'll pledge her once in golden wine Before her stars have set: Though dim one reddening orb may shine, 'T were vain to sigh o'er errors past, The fault of sires or sons; Our soldier heard the threatening blast, And spiked his useless guns; He saw the star-wreathed ensign fall, By mad invaders torn; But saw it from the bastioned wall That laughed their rage to scorn! What though their angry cry is flung God help them if the tempest swings Our toilsome years have made us tame ; Our strength has slept unfelt; The furnace-fire is slow to flame That bids our ploughshares melt; "T is hard to lose the bread they win In spite of Nature's frowns, To see the rusting turbines stand To fold the arms that flood the land With rivers from their looms, But harder still for those who learn The truth forgot so long; When once their slumbering passions burn, The peaceful are the strong! The Lord have mercy on the weak, And calm their frenzied ire, And save our brothers ere they shriek, "We played with Northern fire!" The eagle hold his mountain height, The tiger pace his den! Give all their country, each his right! God keep us all! Amen! BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE. SHE has gone, she has left us in passion and pride, She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow, O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, We can never forget that our hearts have been one, – You were always too ready to fire at a touch; threat; But Friendship still whispered, "Forgive and forget!" Has our love all died out? Have its altars grown cold? Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold? Then Nature must teach us the strength of the chain That her petulant children would sever in vain. They may fight till the buzzards are gorged with their spoil, Till the harvest grows black as it rots in the soil, Till the wolves and the catamounts troop from their caves, And the shark tracks the pirate, the lord of the waves: In vain is the strife! When its fury is past, Their fortunes must flow in one channel at last, As the torrents that rush from the mountains of snow Roll mingled in peace through the valleys below. Our Union is river, lake, ocean, and sky: Man breaks not the medal, when God cuts the die! Though darkened with sulphur, though cloven with steel, The blue arch will brighten, the waters will heal! O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, There are battles with Fate that can never be won! |