2. Dissolve the Union! madmen, would you rend
The glorious motto from our country's crest?
Would ye despoil the stars and stripes that send
Home, food, protection, to the world's oppressed?
Have ye no reverence for the high bequest,
That our immortal sires bestowed ere while?
Has sin effaced the image God impressed
On your humanity, that you could smile,

To see the lurid flames of freedom's funeral pile ?

3. Dissolve the Union! In the day and hour

Ye rend the blood-cemented ties in twain,
The fearful cloud of civil war shall lower

On every old blue hill and sunny plain,
From torrid Mexico to frigid Maine !
Dissolve the Union! No, ye cannot part,

With idle words, the blessed ties that bind,
In one the interests of the mighty heart,

That treasure up the hopes of all mankind.
Awhile, perhaps, the blind may lead the blind,
From beaten paths to quagmires, ere they find
The ray that shone so beautiful and bright,
Was but a phantom lure to deeper, darker night.

4. Dissolve the Union! Never! Ye may sow
The seeds of vile dissension through the land,
May madly aim a parricidal blow,

And show your disregard of all its grand
Eternal interests; but a noble band

Of patriots, tried, and true, will still remain,

With heart to heart, and sinewy hand to hand, To guard from foul dishonor's cankering stain, The jewels God has shrined in freedom's holy fane.

5. Dissolve the Union !-perish first the page

That gave to human sight the hideous scrawl:
Let not the freemen of a future age

Read these detested words: they would recall
Shame, madness, imbecility, and all

That mars the noontide glory of our time.
True to the undivided, stand or fall,

To waver now is little less than crime,
To battle for the right is glorious, is sublime.

XL. THE FIREMAN.

F. S. HILL.

1. HARK! that alarm-bell, 'mid the wintry storm!
Hear the loud shout! the rattling engines swarm.
Hear that distracted mother's cry to save
Her darling infant from a threatened grave!
That babe who lies in sleep's light pinions bound,
And dreams of heaven, while hell is raging round!
Forth springs the Fireman-stay! nor tempt thy fate !-
He hears not-heeds not-nay, it is too late!
See how the timbers crash beneath his feet!
O, which way now is left for his retreat?
The roaring flames already bar his way,
Like ravenous demons raging for their prey!
He laughs at danger,-pauses not for rest,
Till the sweet charge is folded to his breast.

2. Now, quick, brave youth, retrace your path,-but, lo!
A fiery gulf yawns fearfully below!

One desperate leap!-lost! lost!-the flames arise,
And paint their triumph on the o'erarching skies!
Not lost! again his tottering form appears!

The applauding shouts of rapturous friends he hears!
The big drops from his manly forehead roll,
And deep emotions thrill his generous soul.

3. But struggling nature now reluctant yields;
Down drops the arm the infant's face that shields,
To bear the precious burthen all too weak;
When, hark!—the mother's agonizing shriek!
Once more he's roused,-his eye no longer swims,
And tenfold strength reanimates his limbs;

He nerves his faltering frame for one last bound,—
"Your child!" he cries, and sinks upon the ground!

4. And his reward you ask ;-reward he spurns;
For him the father's generous bosom burns,-
For him on high the widow's prayer shall go,-
For him the orphan's pearly tear-drop flow.
His boon, the richest e'er to mortals given,-
Approving conscience, and the smile of Heaven!
From GRIFFITH'S Elocution.

XLI.-LAY OF THE MADMAN.

1. MANY a year hath passed away,

Many a dark and dismal year,

Since last I roamed in the light of day,
Or mingled my own with another's tear;
Woe to the daughters and sons of men-
Woe to them all when I roam again!

2. Here have I watched, in this dungeon cell,
Longer than Memory's tongue can tell;

Here have I shrieked, in my wild despair,

When the damned fiends, from their prison came,

Sported and gamboled, and mocked me here

With their eyes of fire, and their tongues of flame,
Shouting forever and aye my name !

And I strove in vain to burst my chain,
And longed to be free as the winds again,
That I might spring in the wizard ring,
And scatter them back to their hellish den!
Woe to the daughters and sons of men-
Woe to them all, when I roam again!

3. How long have I been in this dungeon here,
Little I know, and nothing I care;

What to me is the day, or night,
Summer's heat, or autumn sere,

Spring-tide flowers, or winter's blight,

Pleasure's smile, or sorrow's tear?

Time! what care I for thy flight,

Joy! I spurn thee with disdain;

Nothing love I but this clanking chain;
Once I broke from its iron hold,

Nothing I said, but silent, and bold,

Like the shepherd that watches his gentle fold,
Like the tiger that crouches in mountain lair,

Hours upon hours so watched I here;

Till one of the fiends that had come to bring
Herbs from the valley and drink from the spring,
Stalked through my dungeon entrance in!

Ha! how he shrieked to see me free-
Ho! how he trembled, and knelt to me,
He, who had mocked me many a day,
And barred me out from its cheerful ray-

Gods! how I shouted to see him pray!
I wreathed my hands in the demon's hair,
And choked his breath in its muttered prayer,
And danced I then, in wild delight,

To see the trembling wretch's fright!

4. Gods! how I crushed his hated bones!

'Gainst the jagged wall and the dungeon stones;

And plunged my arm adown his throat,

And dragged to life his beating heart,
And held it up that I might gloat,

To see its quivering fibres start!
Ho! how I drank of the purple flood,
Quaffed, and quaffed again, of blood,

Till my brain grew dark, and I knew no more,
Till I found myself on this dungeon floor,
Fettered and held by this iron chain;

Ho! when I break its links again,

Ha! when I break its links again,

Woe to the daughters and sons of men!

XLII. THE MOUNTAINS OF LIFE.

J. G. CLARK.

1. THERE's a land far away, 'mid the stars, we are told,
Where they know not the sorrows of time:
Where the pure waters wander through valleys of gold,
And life is a treasure sublime;

'Tis the land of our God, 'tis the home of the soul,

Where the ages of splendor eternally roll,

Where the way-weary traveller reaches his goal,

On the evergreen Mountains of Life.

2. Our gaze cannot soar to that beautiful land,
But our visions have told of its bliss,

And our souls by the gale of its gardens are fanned,
When we faint in the desert of this;

And we sometimes have longed for its holy repose,
When our spirits were torn with temptations and woes,
And we've drank from the tide of the river that flows
From the evergreen Mountains of Life.

3. O, the stars never tread the blue heavens at night,
But we think where the ransomed have trod;

And the day never smiles from his palace of light,

But we feel the bright smile of our God.

We are travelling homeward through changes and gloom,
To a kingdom where pleasures unceasingly bloom,

And our guide is the glory that shines through the tomb,
From the evergreen Mountains of Life.

XLIII.-SCOTT AND THE VETERAN.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

1. AN old and crippled veteran to the War Department came.
He sought the Chief who led him, on many a field of fame:
The Chief who shouted, "Forward!" where'er his banner rose,
And bore his stars in triumph behind the flying foes.
"Have you forgotten, General," the battered soldier cried,
"The days of eighteen hundred twelve, when I was at your side?
Have you forgotten Johnson, that fought at Lundy's Lane?
'Tis true, I'm old, and pensioned, but I want to fight again."
"Have I forgotten?" said the Chief, "my brave old soldier, No!
And here's the hand I gave you then, and let it tell you so;

But you have done your share, my friend; you're crippled, old, and
gray,

And we have need of younger arms and fresher blood to-day.”

2. "But, General!" cried the veteran, a flush upon his brow, "The very men who fought with us, they say, are traitors now; They've torn the flag of Lundy's Lane, our old red, white, and blue, And while a drop of blood is left, I'll show that drop is true. I'm not so weak but I can strike, and I've a good old gun To get the range of traitors' hearts, and pick them one by one. Your Minie rifles, and such arms, it a'n't worth while to try; I couldn't get the hang o' them, but I'll keep my powder dry! "God bless you, comrade!" said the Chief—" God bless your loyal heart! But younger men are in the field, and claim to have their part.

3. They'll plant our sacred banner in each rebellious town,

And woe, henceforth, to any hand that dares to pull it down!" "But, General,”—still persisting—the weeping veteran cried "I am young enough to follow, so long as you're my guide

And some, you know, must bite the dust, and that, at least, can I;
So, give the young ones place to fight, but me a place to die!
If they should fire on Pickens, let the Colonel in command
Put me upon the rampart, with the flag-staff in my hand;