Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimm'd the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy meteor 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;
There shall thy meteor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall sink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

4. Flag of the seas! on ocean 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 hope and 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 streaming o'er us!

153 ABRAHAM AND THE FIRE-WORSHIPPER.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS. *

SCENE-The inside of a Tent, in which the Patriarch ABRA HAM and a PERSIAN TRAVELLER, a Fire-Worshipper, are sitting awhile after supper.

Fire-Worshipper [aside]. What have I said, or done, that by degrees

Mine host hath changed his gracious countenance,

Until he stareth on me, as in wrath!

Have I, 'twixt wake and sleep, lost his wise lore?
Or sit I thus too long, and he himself

Would fain be sleeping? I will speak to that.
[Aloud.] Impute it, O my great and gracious lord!
Unto my feeble flesh, and not my folly,

If mine old eyelids droop against their will,
And I become as one that hath no sense

Even to the milk and honey of thy words.

With my lord's leave, and his good servant's help,

My limbs would creep to bed.

Abraham [angrily quitting his seat]. In this tent, never Thou art a thankless and an impious man.

Fire-W. [rising in astonishment]. A thankless and an impious man! Oh, sir,

My thanks have all but worshipp'd thee.

Abraham.

And whom

Forgotten? like the fawning dog I feed.
From the foot-washing to the meal, and now
To this thy cramm'd and dog-like wish for bed,
I've noted thee; and never hast thou breathed
One syllable of prayer, or praise, or thanks,
To the great God who made and feedeth all.
Fire- W. Oh, sir, the god I worship is the Fire,
The god of gods; and seeing him not here,
In any symbol, or on any shrine,

I waited till he bless'd mine eyes at morn,

And darest thou still to breathe in Abraham's tent?
Forth with thee, wretch; for he that made thy god,
And all thy tribe, and all the host of heaven,
The invisible and only dreadful God,

Will speak to thee this night, out in the storm,
And try thee in thy foolish god, the Fire,
Which with his fingers he makes lightnings of.
Hark to the rising of his robes, the winds,
And get thee forth, and wait him.

And on a night like this! me, poor old man,

A hundred years of age!

Abraham [urging him away]. Not reverencing The God of ages, thou revoltest reverence.

Fire-W. Thou hadst a father;-think of his gray hairs, Houseless, and cuff'd by such a storm as this.

Abraham. God is thy father, and thou own'st not him
Fire-W. I have a wife, as agèd as myself,

And if she learn my death, she'll not survive it,
No, not a day; she is so used to me;
So propp'd up by her other feeble self.
I pray thee, strike us not both down.
Abraham [still urging him].

God made

Husband and wife, and must be own'd of them,
Else he must needs disown them.

Fire-W.

We have children,

One of them, sir, a daughter, who, next week,

Will all day long be going in and out,

Upon the watch for me; she, too, a wife,

And will be soon a mother. Spare, oh, spare her!

She's a good creature, and not strong.

Abraham.
Mine ears
Are deaf to all things but thy blasphemy,
And to the coming of the Lord and God,

Who will this night condemn thee.

[ABRAHAM pushes him out; and remains alone, speak ing For if ever

God came at night-time forth upon the world,
'Tis now this instant. Hark to the huge winds,
The cataracts of hail, and rocky thunder,
Splitting like quarries of the stony clouds,
Beneath the touching of the foot of God!
That was God's speaking in the heavens,-that last
And inward utterance coming by itself.
What is it shaketh thus thy servant, Lord,
Making him fear, that in some loud rebuke
To this idolater, whom thou abhorrest,
Terror will slay himself? Lo, the earth quakes
Beneath my feet, and God is surely here.

[A dead silence; and then a still small voice The Voice. Abraham!

Abraham. Where art thou, Lord? and who is it that speaks

So sweetly in mine ear, to bid me turn

And dare to face thy presence?

The Voice.

Who but He

Whose mightiest utterance thou hast yet to learn?

I was not in the whirlwind, Abraham ;

I was not in the thunder, or the earthquake;

But I am in the still small voice.

Where is the stranger whom thou tookest in?

Abraham. Lord, he denied thee, and I drove him forth.

The Voice. Then didst thou do what God himself forbore

Have I, although he did deny me, borne

With his injuriousness these hundred years,

And couldst thou not endure him one sole night,

And such a night as this?

Abraham.

Lord! I have sinn'd,

And will go forth, and if he be not dead,

Will call him back, and tell him of thy mercies

Both to himself and me.

The Voice.

Behold, and learn!

[The Voice retires while it is speaking; and a fold of the tent is turned back, disclosing the FIRE-WORSHIPPER, wh: is calmly sleeping, with his head on the back of a house lamb.

Abraham. O loving God! the lamb itself's his pillow, And on his forehead is a balmy dew,

And in his sleep he smileth. I meantime,

Poor and proud fool, with my presumptuous hands,
Not God's, was dealing judgments on his head,
Which God himself had cradled!—Oh, methinks
There's more in this than prophet yet hath known,
And Faith, some day, will all in Love be shown.

154. PATRIOTISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

CHATEAUBRIAND.

1. BUT it is the Christian religion that has in sted pa triotism with its true character. This sentiment d to the commission of crime among the ancients, because it was carried to excess; Christianity has made it one of the principal affections in man, but not an exclusive one. It commands us above all things to be just; it requires us to cherish the whole family of Adam, since we ourselves belong to it, though our countrymen have the first claim to our attachment.

2. This morality was unknown before the coming of the Chris tian lawgiver, who had been unjustly accused of attempting to extirpate the passions: God destroys not his own work. The gospel is not the destroyer of the heart, but its regulator. It is to our feelings what taste is to the fine arts; it retrenches all that is exaggerated, false, common, and trivial; it leaves all that is fair, and good, and true. The Christian religion, rightly understood, is only primitive nature washed from origi nal pollution.

3. It is when at a distance from our country that we feel the full force of the instinct by which we are attached to it. For want of the reality, we try to feed upon dreams; for the