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Page 12
So rages still the irresponsible power,
Using the madden'd populace as hounds,
To hunt down freedom where she seeks retreat.
The ancient history becomes the new--
The ages move in circles, and the snake
Ends ever with his tail in his own mouth.
Thus still in all the past!--and man the same
In all the ages--a poor thing of passion,
Hot greed, and miserable vanity,
And all infirmities of lust and error,
Makes of himself the wretched instrument
To murder his own hope.
So empires fall,--
Past, present, and to come!--
There is no hope
For nations or peoples, once they lapse from virtue
And fail in modest sense of what they are--
Creatures of weakness, whose security
Lies in meek resting on the law of God,
And in that wise humility which pleads
Ever for his guardian watch and Government,
Though men may bear the open signs of rule.
Humility is safety! could men learn
The law, "_ne sutor ultra crepidam_,"
And the sagacious cobbler, at his last,
Content himself with paring leather down
To heel and instep, nicely fitting parts,
In proper adaptation, to the foot,
We might have safety.
Rightly to conceive
What's right, and limit the o'erreaching will
To this one measure only, is the whole
Of that grand rule, and wise necessity,
Which only gives us safety.
Where a State,
Or blended States, or peoples, pass the bounds
Set for their progress, they must topple and fall
Into that gulf of ruin which has swallowed
All ancient Empires, States, Republics; all
Perishing, in like manner, from the selfsame cause!
The terrible conjunction of the event,
Close with the provocation, stands apart,
A social beacon in all histories;
And yet we take no heed, but still rush on,
Under mixed sway of greed and vanity,
And like the silly boy with his card-castle,
Precipitate to ruin as we build.
The Voice of the South.
Tyrt�us.--_Charleston Mercury._
'Twas a goodly boon that our fathers gave,
And fits but ill to be held by the slave;
And sad were the thought, if one of our band
Should give up the hope of so fair a land.
But the hour has come, and the times that tried
The souls of men in our days of pride,
Return once more, and now for the brave,
To merit the boon which our fathers gave.
And if there be one base spirit who stands
Now, in our peril, with folded hands,
Let his grave at once in the soil be wrought,
With the sword with which his old father fought.
An oath sublime should the freeman take,
Still braving the fight and the felon stake,--
The oath that his sires brought over the sea,
When they pledged their swords to Liberty!
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