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)

O 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 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!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

(WHITMAN: O Captain! My Captain!)

THE DESTINY OF MAN

The hills

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,- the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,-

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom - 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

In their last sleep

the dead reign there alone.

So shalt thou rest and what if thou withdraw
Unheeded by the living-and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man,—
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
(BRYANT: Thanatopsis)

ODE TO THE WEST WIND

I

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou from whose presence the leaves dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

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;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

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 horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Vaulted with all thy congregated might