'Twas my forefather's hand That old familiar tree, When but an idle boy I sought its grateful shade; In all their gushing joy Here too my sisters played. My mother kissed me here; My father pressed my handForgive this foolish tear, But let that old oak stand! My heart-strings round thee cling, And still thy branches bend, And, woodman, leave the spot; While I've a hand to save, Thy axe shall hurt it not. George P. Morris. Brandywine, the River, Pa. THE BRANDYWINE. H! if there is in beautiful and fair potency to charm, a power to bless; If bright blue skies and music-breathing air, And Nature in her every varied dress Of peaceful beauty and wild loveliness, Can shed across the heart one sunshine ray, Then others, too, sweet stream, with only less Than mine own joy, shall gaze, and bear away Some cherished thought of thee for many a coming day. But yet not utterly obscure thy banks, Nor all unknown to history's page thy name; The wave that ripples on, so calm and still, The cannon's voice hath rolled from hill to hill, And midst thy echoing vales the trump hath sounded shrill. My country's standard waved on yonder height, Amidst the battle stood; and all the day, The bursting bomb, the furious cannonade, The bugle's martial notes, the musket's play, In mingled uproar wild, resounded far away. Thick clouds of smoke obscured the clear bright sky, And hung above them like a funeral pall, Shrouding both friend and foe, so soon to lie Like brethren slumbering in one father's hall: The work of death went on, and when the fall Of night came onward silently, and shed A dreary hush, where late was uproar all, How many a brother's heart in anguish bled O'er cherished ones, who there lay resting with the dead Unshrouded and uncoffined they were laid The night winds sung their only dirge, their knell The flap of night-hawk's wing, and murmuring waters' flow. But it is over now, the plough hath rased All trace of where War's wasting hand hath been: Save where the share, in passing o'er the scene, The waters have resumed their wonted sheen, A pebble-stone that on the war-field lay, To tell that I had trod the scene of war, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler. TO THE BRANDYWINE. AGAIN upon my view Thou com'st in quiet beauty, gentle stream! Tall trees above thee bend, That cast dark shadows on thy swelling breast; And massy rocks arise, To whose gray sides the glossy smilax cleaves, The pendent willows dip Their long boughs o'er, and in the water lave; Thou wind'st through meadows green, Fringed with tall grass, and graceful bending fern; And down through glades to join thee, many a stream Leaps from its mountain urn. * In sunnier climes than ours Glide brighter streams, o'er sands of golden hue, And course their way beneath o'ershadowing flowers And skies of fadeless blue. Yet still around thy name A halo lingers, never to decay, For thou hast seen, of old, young Freedom's flame, Beaming with glorious ray. And once thy peaceful tide Was filled with life-blood from bold hearts and brave; And heroes on thy verdant margin died, The land they loved, to save. These vales, so calm and still, Once saw the foeman's charge, the bayonet's gleam; Yet in thy glorious beauty, now, Unchanged thou art as when War's clarion peal |