CHERISH THY FRIENDS. OH! cherish, in thine heart of hearts, The friends whom thou hast tried; Those who have stood from childhood up Still faithful at thy side! Thy chosen brothers of the soul, The trusted and the true; Cherish them! if thou many hast- herish thy Friends!-Oh! never let me phrase, perchance half heard- let the evil-tongued 'from thee estrange! A SONG OF SEVENTY-SIX. A SONG to the men of the olden time!- Submission to tyrants was deemed a crime— A pledge to the brave! who dared to crave A freeman's death, and a freeman's grave, A health to the bold and fearless men, Of purpose firm and high— With hearts to dare, and with hands to pen Our Charter of Liberty! Oh! never, while bears that scroll one name Their hands dared there to affix, By us be forgotten the deeds or the fame Of the SIGNERS OF SEVENTY-SIX! AMBITION-TRUE AND FALSE. "By this sin fell the angels." "Yet press on, For it shall make you mighty among men; N. P. WILLIS. METHINKS it were a glorious theme For Godlike minstrelsy That bright, e'en though delusive dream, From which how few are free; That soul-consuming phantasm-Fame! The burning wish to win a name To Immortality; A name for nations to adore, When he who won it is no more! I do not mean that evil fire The world has oft appalled,— Insane Ambition's fell desire For glory, falsely called; That thirst for power-the lust of sway, When, on Rome's Capitoline Hill I speak not of the sullied fame Of him of Macedon; Though linked in history his name, Nor of the lurid lustre thrown By chivalric Romance, Round him of modern Macedon, Imperial, conquering France: For, hark! as rolls from battle-plain How dim his deeds of evil name Not such as these the fame to choose, Sad is the lesson, dark and stern, How fell from his imperial height It tells-Macedon's mighty king And Cæsar's fate we know He through a thousand battles pass'd To die a tyrant's death at last! |