'Yet do not curl your lips with scorn
That others are not great as ye;
Your fathers fought ere ye were born,
And died that thus it now should be!
I tell ye, spirits walk unseen,
Excepting by the soul's strong sight;
Hampden and Washington, I ween,
Are leaders yet in Freedom's fight!'
* * * * *
It ceased; but oh, Its words of fire
Had dropped upon my Northman's heart,
Rebuked a moment's vain desire,
And slain it like a hunter's dart;
Oh, welcome now the slippery hail,
And welcome winter's biting blast,
Ye braced our sires; they still prevail
Who triumphed through the stormy past.
And as beside the ruddy blaze
We muse or talk of mighty things,
In clarion tone one little phrase
Still through the heart's deep echoes rings:
'Our Hearths--our Homes--beyond compare!'
Those charmed circles whence there rise
The steadfast souls that do and dare,
And shape a Nation's destinies!
There, pile the fagots high--aslant--
And let them crackle out their hymn;
There is no logic--that I grant--
In wilful words of woman's whim:
And yet I feel the links that glide
'Twixt English Hearths and Liberty,
And track how We--our truest pride--
_First_ sheltered Her Divinity!
--_Ladies' Companion_.
* * * * *
Printed and Published by W.
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