Green woods and glens your fathers loved- From lands where deathless verdure waves, Then raise once more the warrior song, LESSON CXXVIII. O, LET US DIE LIKE MEN. The following patriotic lines were written by LIEUT. G. W. PATTEN, immediately preceding a battle with the Indians in Florida. The Editor would not have introduced so many pieces that breathe the war spirit, however recommended by the charms of verse, were he not aware that the best pieces for declamation are often mere exhibitions of passion, and did he not believe that, ere long, if not alrea dy, such pieces as the following will be considered as the mile-stones of human progress, beacons to warn rather than examples to excite the angry passions. Fortunately the ways of peace, though too quiet to stir up the spirit to unhealthy action, are daily furnishing more and more moving themes for the poet. Roll out the banner on the air, And draw your swords of flame! If we must die ere set of sun, O, let us die like men! We seek the foe from night till morn, Go roll the drum, and wind the horn, In idle strength, we watch a prey "Tis not to right a kinsman's wrongs If in such struggle we must fall, Remember, boys, that mercy's dower, If we MUST perish in the fight, LESSON CXXIX. THE SEMINOLE'S REPLY. The following piece is characteristic of the Seminoles, who for years resisted the American forces in Florida. It is the universal testimony of the earliest travellers and settlers in the United States, that the Indians treated them kindly at first. What produced the very different temper expressed in the following poem by LT. G. W. PATTEN, is a question that must one day be answered.--Scorn must be the predominant expression of the speaker. Blaze! with your serried columns, I will not bend the knee! The shackle ne'er again shall bind When the tempest muttered low : The lightning of its blow. I've scared ye in the city, dread I've scalped ye on the plain; I scorn your proffered treaty, Revenge is stamped upon my spear, Some strike for hope of booty, To see the white man fall: Ye've trailed me through the forest, Think ye to find my homestead? My tawny household do ye seek? I am a childless sire.* But should ye crave life's nourishment, I live on hate-'tis all my bread, I loathe you with my bosom, I ne'er will ask you quarter, And I ne'er will be your slave: LESSON CXXX. SINGING FOR THE MILLION. The following witty hit at one of the nuisances of London, and of many other places of less pretension, was written by THOMAS HOOD, the comic poet of England. The third paragraph would have been omitted had it not appeared to the Editor to be a just satire upon many who would be shocked to use a profane expression, but who act an oath more effectually than if they had spoken it. Stentor, to whom the unlucky singer is compared, was a Greek soldier, who went to the Trojan war, and had a voice, says Homer, equal to that of fifty com mon men. In one of those back streets, to peace so dear, The other day, a ragged wight "I have a silent sorrow here!" And doors, against the persevering Stentor, *It will be remembered that many of the Seminoles killed their own children, they being considered an encumbrance to the war. Though brick, and glass, and solid oak opposed, The intruding voice would enter. Louder, and louder still, The fellow sang with horrible good will, 66 Expostulating at her open door- I vow I can not work, or read, or pray, The spinster pulled her door too with a slam, Will crash a crate in setting down a cup,' A very bad expression. However, in she went, Leaving the subject of her discontent To Mr. Jones's Clerk, at Number Ten, Who, throwing up the sash, With accents rash, Thus hailed the most vociferous of men. |