While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the Sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonoured fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honoured throughout the Earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, 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 for ever, one and inseparable!

INDEPENDENCE BELL. - JULY 4, 1776.

[When the Declaration of Independence was adopted by Congress, the event was announced by ringing the old State-House bell, which bore the inscription "Proclaim liberty throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof!" The old bellman stationed his little grandson at the door of the ball, to await the instructions of the door-keeper when to ring. At the word, the young patriot rushed out, and clapping his hands, shouted: "Ring! RING! RING!"]

THERE was a tumult in the city,
In the quaint old Quaker town,
And the streets were rife with people

Pacing restless up and down, — People gathering at the corners,

Where they whisper'd each to cach, And the sweat stood on their temples With the earnestness of speech.

As the bleak Atlantic currents

Lash the wild Newfoundland shore,
So they beat against the State-House,
So they surged against the door;
And the mingling of their voices
Made a harmony profound,

Till the quiet street of Chestnut
Was all turbulent with sound.

"Will they do it?"

"Dare they do it?”

"What's the news?"

"Who is speaking?"

"What of Adams?" "What of Sherman?"

"O, God grant they won't refuse!" "Make some way there!" "Let me nearer!" "I am stifling!" "Stifle, then!

When a nation's life's at hazard,

We've no time to think of men!"

So they surged against the State-House,
While all solemnly inside

Sat the Continental Congress,

Truth and reason for their guide.

O'er a simple scroll debating,

Which, though simple it might be, Yet should shake the cliffs of England With the thunders of the free.

Far aloft in that high steeple

Sat the bellman, old and gray;

He was weary of the tyrant
And his iron-scepter'd sway,
So he sat, with one hand ready
On the clapper of the bell,
When his eye could catch the signal,
The long-expected news, to tell.

See, see the dense crowd quivers
Through all its lengthen'd line,
As the boy beside the portal

Hastens forth to give the sign!
With his little hands uplifted,
Breezes dallying with his hair,
Hark! with deep, clear intonation,
Breaks his young voice on the air:

Hush'd the people's swelling murmur, Whilst the boy cries joyously; "Ring!" he shouts, "Ring! grandpapa,

Ring! O, ring for Liberty!" Quickly, at the given signal,

The old bellman lifts his hand,
Forth he sends the good news, making
Iron music through the land.

How they shouted! What rejoicing!
How the old bell shook the air,
Till the clang of freedom ruffled
The calmly-gliding Delaware!

How the bonfires and the torches
Lighted up the night's repose,

And from the flames, like fabled Phoenix,
Our glorious liberty arose !

That old State-House bell is silent,

Hush'd is now its clamorous tongue;

But the spirit it awaken'd

And, when we greet the smiling sunlight
On the fourth of each July,

We will ne'er forget the bellman
Who, betwixt the earth and sky,
Rung out, loudly, "Independence";
Which, please God, shall never die!

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

WHEN Freedom, from her mountain height,
Unfurl'd her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there!
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,

And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then, from his mansion in the Sun,
She call'd her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land!

Majestic monarch of the cloud!

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
To hear the tempest-trumpings loud,
And see the lightning lances driven,

When strive the warriors of the storm,
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, -
Child of the Sun! to thee 'tis given
To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle-stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory!

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high !
When speaks the signal-trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on,
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimm'd the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn,
And, as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall shrink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighten'd waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendours fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home,
By angel-hands to valour given,

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven. Forever float that standard sheet,

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!