ton, and Saratoga. Veterans of half a century! when ir your youthful days, you put everything at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this! At a period to which you could not reasonably have expected to arrive; at a moment of national prosperity, such as you could never have foreseen; you are now met here, to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the overflowings of a universal gratitude. 6. But your agitated countenances, and your heaving breasts, inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons of the living, throng to your embraces. The scene overwhelms you, and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your declining years, and bless them! And when you shall here have exchanged your embraces, when you shall once more have pressed the hands which have been so often extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in the exultation of victory, then look abroad into this lovely land, which your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is filled; yea, look abroad into the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your last days from the improved condition of mar.kind. THE AFRICAN CHIEF.-Bryant. Chain'd in the market-place he stood, A man of giant frame, Amid the gathering multitude That shrunk to hear his name- 2.. Vainly, but well, that chief had fought, Yet pride, that fortune humbles not, The scars his dark broad bosom wore, He could not be a slave. 3. Then to his conqueror he spake "My brother is a king; Undo this necklace from my neck, And take this bracelet ring, And send me where my brother reigns, And I will fill thy hands With store of ivory from the plains, And gold-dust from the sands." 4. "Not for thy ivory nor thy gold Will I unbind thy chain; That bloody hand shall never hold A price thy nation never gave, For thou shalt be the Christian's slave, 5. Then wept the warrior chief, and bade And, one by one, each heavy braid Thick were the platted locks, and long And deftly hidden there Shone many a wedge of gold among 6. "Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold And my young children leave their play. 7. "I take thy gold-but I have made And ween that by the cocoa shade 8. His heart was broken-crazed his brain: He struggled fiercely with his chain, They drew him forth upon the sands, THE DEATH OF ALIATAR.-Bryant. 'Tis not with gilded sabres That gleam in baldricks blue, The afflicted warriors come, 2. The banner of the Phenix, The flag that loved the sky That scarce the wind dared wanton with It flew so proud and high Now leaves its place in battle-field, And sweeps the ground i≥ grief; The bearer drags its glorious folds Behind the fallen chief, As mournfully and slowly The afflicted warriors come, To the deep wail of the trumpet, And beat of muffled drum. 3. Brave Aliatar led forward A hundred Moors to go To where his brother held Motril And now his bier is at the gate, From whence he prick'd his steed. While mournfully and slowly The afflicted warriors come, 4. The knights of the Grand Master In crowded ambush lay; They rush'd upon him where the reeds They smote the valiant Aliatar, The afflicted warriors come, To the deep wail of the trumpet, |