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النشر الإلكتروني

Where youth's gay hats with blossoms bloom,

And every maid, with simple art,

Wears on her breast, like her own heart,

A bud whose depths are all perfume ;
While every garment's gentle stir
Is breathing rose and lavender.

6. The pastor came; his snowy locks

Hallowed his brow of thought and care;
And calmly, as shepherds lead their flocks,
He led into the house of prayer.

The pastor rose; the prayer was strong;
The psalm was warrior David's song;
The text, a few short words of might,-
"The Lord of hosts shall arm the right !"
He spoke of wrongs too long endured,
Of sacred rights to be secured;
Then from his patriot tongue of flame
The startling words for Freedom came.
The stirring sentences he spake
Compelled the heart to glow or quake,
And, rising on his theme's broad wing,
And grasping in his nervous hand
The imaginary battle-brand,
In face of death he dared to fling
Defiance to a tyrant king.

7. Even as he spoke, his frame, renewed
In eloquence of attitude,

Rose, as it seemed, a shoulder higher;
Then swept his kindling glance of fire
From startled pew to breathless choir;

When suddenly his mantle wide
His hands impatient flung aside,
And, lo! he met their wondering eyes
Complete in all a warrior's guise.

8. A moment there was awful pause,

When Berkeley cried, "Cease, traitor! cease!
God's temple is the house of peace!"

The other shouted, "Nay, not so
When God is with our righteous cause :
His holiest places then are ours,
His temples are our forts and towers
That frown upon a tyrant foe:
In this, the dawn of Freedom's day,
There is a time to fight and pray!"

9. And now before the open door

The warrior-priest had ordered so—
The enlisting trumpet's sudden soar
Rang through the chapel, o'er and o'er,
Its long reverberating blow,

So loud and clear, it seemed the ear
Of dusty death must wake and hear.
And there the startling drum and fife
Fired the living with fiercer life;
While overhead, with wild increase,
Forgetting its ancient toll of peace,

The great bell swung as ne'er before:
It seemed as it would never cease;

And every word its ardor flung
From off its jubilant iron tongue

Was, "War! War! War!"

10. "Who dares ?"-this was the patriot's cry, As striding from the desk he came— "Come out with me, in Freedom's name, For her to live, for her to die?" A hundred hands flung up reply,

A hundred voices answered, "I."

CVII. INDEPENDENCE BELL.

1. There was 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 corners,

Where they whispered each to each,
And the sweat stood on their temples
With the earnestness of speech.

2. 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.

3. "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."

4. So they beat against the portal—
Man and woman, maid and child,—
And the July sun in heaven

On the scene looked down and smiled;
The same sun that saw the Spartan
Shed his patriot blood in vain
Now beheld the soul of freedom
All unconquered rise again.

5. Far aloft in that high steeple
Sat the bellman, old and gray;
He was weary of the tyrant

And his iron-sceptered sway;
So he sat with one hand ready
On the clapper of the bell,
When his eye should catch the signal,
Very happy news to tell.

6. See! oh, see! the dense crowd quivers
All along its lengthy line,

As the boy beside the portal
Hastens forth to give the sign!
With his small hands upward lifted,
Breezes dallying with his hair,
Hark! with deep, clear intonation
Breaks his young voice on the air,

7. Hushed the people's swelling murmur, While the boy cries joyously,

"Ring!" he shouts aloud; "ring! grandpa! Ring! oh ring for Liberty!"

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