Nor ever shall the Muse's eye The earth to thee its incense yields, How glorious is thy girdle cast As fresh in yon horizon dark, For, faithful to its sacred page, LESSON VI. The Battle-Field.-W. C. BRYANT. ONCE this soft turf, this rivulet's sands, Ah, never shall the land forget How gushed the life-blood of her brave― Gushed, warm with hope and valour yet, Upon the soil they fought to save. Now all is calm and fresh and still; And talk of children on the hill, And bell of wandering kine, are heard. No solemn host goes trailing by The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain; Men start not at the battle-cry Oh, be it never heard again! Soon rested those who fought-but thou, A friendless warfare! lingering long The sage may frown-yet faint thou not! Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; Yea, though thou die upon the dust, When those who helped thee flee in fear, Die full of hope and manly trust, Like those who fell in battle here; Another hand thy sword shall wield, LESSON VII. The Broken Heart. PERCIVAL. He has gone to the land where the dead are still, He drank at the cup of grief his fill, He has gone to the land where the dead are cold, The tomb its darkest veil has rolled O'er all his faults forever; O! there was a light that shone within He has gone to the land where the dead may rest In a soft unbroken slumber; Where the pulse that swelled his anguished breast Ah! little the reckless witlings know That bosom which burned with the brightest glow He longed to love, and a frown was all He sought, with an ardor full and keen, To rise to a noble station, But repulsed by the proud, the cold, the mean, They called him away to pleasure's bowers, He felt that the charm of life was gone, He turned to the picture fancy drew, LESSON VIII. Against the American War.-LORD CHATHAM. I CANNOT, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation: the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelope it, and display, in its full danger and genuine colours, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them? Measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt! "But yesterday, and Britain might have stood against the world; now, none so poor as to do her reverence!" The people, whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us, supplied with every military store, have their interest consulted, and their ambassadors entertained, by our inveterate enemy—and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honours the British troops than I do; I know their virtues and their valour; I know they can achieve any thing but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of British America is an impossibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts will be for ever vain and impotent -doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms -never, never, never! But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage ?-to call into civilized alliance, the wild and inhuman inhabitant of the woods?—to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punish ment. But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; "for it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk, "to use all the means which God and nature have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this house, or in this country. |