discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, with fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured; bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and union afterwards"; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, "Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" (WEBSTER: Reply to Hayne) GOD'S WILL BE DONE The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe unto that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in the living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope - fervently do we pray - that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn with the sword, as it was said two thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." (LINCOLN : Second Inaugural Address) Ο CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red! Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths - for you the shores crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here, Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck You've fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells! Walk the deck my Captain lies, (WHITMAN: O Captain! My Captain!) THE DESTINY OF MAN The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, - the vales That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Take the wings Of morning and the Barcan desert pierce, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings - yet - the dead are there; And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down (BRYANT: Thanatopsis) ODE TO THE WEST WIND I O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odors plain and hill ; Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; II Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the dying year, to which this closing night |