S

CAROLINE.*

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

HE has gone, - she has left us in passion and pride,Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side! She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow, And turned on her brother the face of a foe!

O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,

We can never forget that our hearts have been one,
Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name,
From the fountain of blood with the finger of flame!

You were always too ready to fire at a touch ;
But we said, "She is hasty, — she does not mean much."
We have scowled, when you uttered some turbulent threat ;
But Friendship still whispered, "Forgive and forget!"

Ilas 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,

* Written upon the announcement of the passage of the "Ordinance of Secession," on the 20th of December, 1860, by the Convention of South Carolina, the first State which attempted to secede. 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!
The star-flowering banner must never be furled,
For its blossoms of fight are the hope of the world!

Go, then, our rash sister! afar and aloof,
Run wild in the sunshine, away from our roof;
But when your heart aches and your feet have grown sore,
Remember the pathway that leads to our door!

Atlantic Monthly.

A PSALM OF THE UNION.

I.

GOD of the Free! upon thy breath

Our flag is for the Right unrolled ;
Still broad and brave as when its stars

First crowned the hallowed time of old :

For Honor still its folds shall fly,

For Duty still their glories burn,

A PSALM OF THE UNION.

Where Truth, Religion, Freedom guard
The patriot's sword and martyr's urn.
Then shout beside thine oak, O North!
O South! wave answer with thy palm;
And in our Union's heritage

Together lift the Nation's psalm !

II.

How glorious is our mission here !

Heirs of a virgin world are we;
The chartered lords whose lightnings tame
The rocky mount and roaring sea:
We march, and Nature's giants own
The fetters of our mighty cars ;
We look, and lo! a continent

Is crouched beneath the Stripes and Stars!
Then shout beside thine oak, O North!

O South! wave answer with thy palm;
And in our Union's heritage
Together lift the Nation's psalm !

III.

No tyrant's impious step is ours;

No lust of power on nations rolled :
Our Flag for friends a starry sky,
For foes a tempest every fold !
Oh! thus we'll keep our nation's life,
Nor fear the bolt by despots hurled :
The blood of all the world is here,

And they who strike us, strike the world.
'Then shout beside thine oak, O North!
O South! wave answer with thy palm;
And in our Union's heritage
Together lift the Nation's psalm !

IV.

God of the Free! our Nation bless

In its strong manhood as its birth ;

3

And make its life a Star of Hope
For all the struggling of the Earth:
Thou gav'st the glorious Past to us;
Oh! let our Present burn as bright,
And o'er the mighty Future cast
Truth's, Honor's, Freedom's holy light!
Then shout beside thine oak, O North!
O South! wave answer with thy palm;
And in our Union's heritage

Together lift the Nation's psalm !

Harpers' Monthly, December, 1861.

GOD FOR OUR NATIVE LAND.

BY REV. G. W. BETHUNE, D. D.

GOD's blessing be upon

Our own, our native land!

The land our fathers won

By the strong heart and hand,
The keen axe and the brand,
When they felled the forest's pride,
And the tyrant foe defied,
The free, the rich, the wide :
God for our native land!

Up with the starry sign,

The red stripes and the white !
Where'er its glories shine,
In peace, or in the fight,
We own its high command;
For the flag our fathers gave,
O'er our children's heads shall wave,
And their children's children's grave!
God for our native land!

THE FLAG.

Who doth that flag defy,
We challenge as our foe;
Who will not for it die,

Out from us he must go!
So let them understand.
Who that dear flag disclaim,
Which won their fathers' fame,
We brand with endless shame!
God for our native land!

Our native land! to thee,
* In one united vow,

To keep thee strong and free,

And glorious as now

We pledge each heart and hand;

By the blood our fathers shed,
By the ashes of our dead,

By the sacred soil we tread!
God for our native land!

5

THE FLAG.*

BY HORATIO WOODMAN.

WHY flashed that flag on Monday morn
Across the startled sky?
Why leapt the blood to every cheek,
The tears to every eye?

* Fort Sumter, after being occupied by Major Anderson four months with ninety men, was evacuated after bombardment on Saturday, April 14th, 1861. On the following Monday, as if by one consent, the flag of the Republic was raised throughout the Free States, so that wherever the eye turned the national colors were in sight; and the demand for flags was so great that the price of bunting quadrupled in a few days.