22. THE AMERICAN FLAG.

[To be read with declamatory and dramatic force, radical and
thorough stress, and orotund quality.]

1. When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled 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 called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.
2. 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!

3. 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 dimmed 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 fall beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

4. Flag of the seas! on ocean's wave

Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave.
When Death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted 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 splendors fly,
In triumph, o'er his closing eye.

5. Flag of the free heart's only home,
By angel hands to valor 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 waving o'er us!

DRAKE.

23. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

[The reading of this poem should be characterized by slow movement, median stress, pure tone, and orotund quality. To be marked by the class for emphasis, inflection, and pauses.]

1.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

2.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed-

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

3.

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last found home, and knew the old no

more.

4.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn!
While on my ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that

sings,

5.

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

HOLMES.

24. KENTUCKY BELLE.

1.

Summer of 'sixty-three, sir, and Conrad was gone away, Gone to the county-town, sir, to sell our first load of hay; We lived in the log-house yonder, poor as ever you've

seen;

Röschen there was a baby, and I was only nineteen.

2.

Conrad, he took the oxen, but he left Kentucky Belle. How much we thought of Kentuck, I could n't begin to

tell

Came from the Blue-Grass country; my father gave her

to me

When I rode north with Conrad, away from the Ten

nessee.

3.

Conrad lived in Ohio, a German he is, you know;

The house stood in broad cornfields, stretching on, row after row.

The old folks made me welcome; they were kind as

kind could be;

But I kept longing, longing, for the hills of the Ten

nessee.

4.

Oh! for a sight of water, the shadowed slope of a hill! Clouds that hang on the summit, a wind that never is still!

But the level land went stretching away to meet the

sky,

Never a rise, from north to south, to rest the weary eye!

5.

From east to west, no river to shine out under the moon, Nothing to make a shadow in the yellow afternoon: Only the breathless sunshine, as I looked out, all forlorn; Only the "rustle, rustle," as I walked among the corn.

6.

When I fell sick with pining, we did n't wait any more, But moved away from the corn-lands, out to this rivershore

The Tuscarawas it's called, sir; off there's a hill, you

see;

And now I've grown to like it next best to the Ten

nessee.

7.

I was at work that morning. Some one came riding like mad

Over the bridge and up the road-Farmer Rouf's little lad.

Bareback he rode; he had no hat; he hardly stopped

to say,

"Morgan's men are coming, Frau; they're galloping on

this way.