|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 159
Brave boy, I tolled when your father died,
And you wept while my tones pealed loud;
And more gently I rung when the lily-white dame,
Your mother dear, lay in her shroud:
And I sang in sweet tone
The angels might own,
When your sister you gave to your friend;
Oh! I rang with delight,
On that sweet summer night,
When they vowed they would love to the end!
But a base foe comes from the regions of crime,
With a heart all hot with the flames of hell;
And the tones of the bell you have loved so long
No more on the air shall swell:
For the people's chief,
With his proud belief
That his country's cause is God's own,
Would change the song,
The hills have rung,
To the thunder's harsher tone.
Then take me down from the village church,
Where in peace so long I have hung;
But I charge you, by all the loved and lost,
_Remember the songs I have sung._
Remember the mound
Of holy ground,
Where your father and mother lie;
And swear by the love
For the dead above
To beat your foul foe or die.
Then take me; but when (I charge you this)
You have come to the bloody field,
That the bell of God, to a cannon grown,
You will ne'er to the foeman yield.
By the love of the past,
Be that hour your last,
When the foe has reached this trust;
And make him a bed
Of patriot dead,
And let him sleep in this holy dust.
[1] Mortally wounded at the battle of Seven Pines.
The Tree, the Serpent, and the Star.
By A. P. Gray, of South Carolina.
From the silver sands of a gleaming shore,
Where the wild sea-waves were breaking,
A lofty shoot from a twining root
Sprang forth as the dawn was waking;
And the crest, though fed by the sultry beam,
(And the shaft by the salt wave only,)
Spread green to the breeze of the curling seas,
And rose like a column lonely.
Then hail to the tree, the Palmetto tree,
Ensign of the noble, the brave, and the free.
As the sea-winds rustled the bladed crest,
And the sun to the noon rose higher,
A serpent came, with an eye of flame,
And coiled by the leafy pyre;
His ward he would keep by the lonely tree,
To guard it with constant devotion;
Oh, sharp was the fang, and the arm�d clang,
That pierced through the roar of the ocean,
And guarded the tree, the Palmetto tree,
Ensign of the noble, the brave, and the free.
And the day wore down to the twilight close,
The breeze died away from the billow;
Yet the wakeful clang of the rattles rang
Anon from the serpent's pillow;
When I saw through the night a gleaming star
O'er the branching summit growing,
Till the foliage green and the serpent's sheen
In the golden light were glowing,
That hung o'er the tree, the Palmetto tree,
Ensign of the noble, the brave, and the free.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|