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Page 47
"There's not a tone from out the teeming past,
Uplifted once in such a cause as ours,
Which does not smite our souls
In long reverberating thunder-rolls,
From the far mountain-steeps of ancient story.
Above the shouting, furious Persian mass,
Millions arrayed in pomp of Orient powers,
Rings the wild war-cry of Leonidas
Pent in his rugged fortress of the rock;
And o'er the murmurous seas,
Compact of hero-faith and patriot bliss,
(For conquest crowns the Athenian's hope at last),
Gome the clear accents of Miltiades,
Mingled with cheers that drown the battle-shock
Beside the wave-washed strand of Salamis.
"Where'er on earth the self-devoted heart
Hath been by worthy deeds exalted thus,
We look for proud exemplars; yet for us
It is enough to know
_Our fathers left us freemen_; let us show
The will to hold our lofty heritage,
The patient strength to act our fathers' part--
Brothers on history's page,
We wait to write our autographs in gore,
To cast the morning brightness of our glory
Beyond our day and hope,
The narrow limit of _one_ age's scope,
On Time's remotest shore!
"Yea! though our children's blood
Kain 'round us in a crimson-swelling flood,
Why pause or falter?--that red tide shall bear
The Ark that holds our shrined liberty,
Nearer, and yet more near
Some height of promise o'er the ensanguined sea.
"At last, the conflict done,
The fadeless meed of final victory won--
Behold! emerging from the rifted dark
Athwart a shining summit high in heaven,
That delegated Ark!
No more to be by vengeful tempests driven,
But poised upon the sacred mount, whereat
The congregated nations gladly gaze,
Struck by the quiet splendor of the rays
That circle Freedom's blood-bought Ararat!"
Thus spake the people's wisdom; unto me
Its voice hath come, a passionate augury!
Methinks the very aspect of the world
Changed to the mystic music of its hope.
For, lo! about the deepening heavenly cope
The stormy cloudland banners all are furled,
And softly borne above
Are brooding pinions of invisible love,
Distilling balm of rest and tender thought
From fairy realms, by fairy witchery wrought
O'er the hushed ocean steal celestial gleams
Divine as light that haunts a poet's dreams;
And universal nature, wheresoever
My vision strays--o'er sky, and sea, and river--
Sleeps, like a happy child,
In slumber undefiled,
A premonition of sublimer days,
When war and warlike lays
At length shall cease,
Before a grand Apocalypse of Peace,
Vouchsafed in mercy to all human kind--
A prelude and a prophecy combined!
[1]Everybody must remember the famous tournament scene in "Ivanhoe." Of
course the author, in drawing a comparison between that chivalric battle
and the contest upon "Foote's Resolutions" in the great Senatorial debate
of 1832, would be understood as _not_ pushing the comparison further
than the _first_ shock of arms between Bois Guilbert and his youthful
opponent, which Scott tells us was the most spirited encounter of the day.
Both the knights' lances were fairly broken, and they parted, with no
decisive advantage on either side.
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