THE AMERICAN IN EUROPE.

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Although they boast no classic lore, the shores it proudly laves

Are not, like those I here behold, the soil of serfs and slaves!

Oh! sad the thought:-In these fair lands where Freedom had her birth,

Dwell the down-trodden-the enslaved-the byword of the earth;

That Freedom's holy altar thus is desecrated here,

And shrines to Despotism given, to Liberty so dear;That lands which once Leonidas and Brutus their's

might boast,

The memory of their names have now degenerately lost!

Hence, though they be in sunny skies and classic ruins dress'd,

I long to breathe my native air, to tread my own free West!

And stronger grows the feeling, with each day and hour I roam

No land is like our native land-no country like our home!

AMERICA!—my native land!—my thoughts still turn to thee,

Like the lover's to his mistress-like the sailor's to the sea!

A SONG OF SEVENTY-SIX.

A SONG to the men of the olden time!—
The days of our fathers, when

Submission to tyrants was deemed a crime-
Ah! those were the days of MEN!

A pledge to the brave! who dared to crave And to fill-each martyred one—

A freeman's death, and a freeman's grave, At Bunker and Lexington!

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.

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By this sin fell the angels."

"Yet press on,

For it shall make you mighty among men;
And from the eyrie of your eagle thought,
You shall look down on monarchs!"

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,
By which great Cæsar in his day
A universe enthralled,

When, on Rome's Capitoline Hill

He stood-Rome's only law his will!

I speak not of the sullied fame

Of him of Macedon;

Though linked in history his name,
With thrones and empires won;
With monarchs subject or dethroned—
Nations that his allegiance owned
From east to setting sun;

Till, this world subject to his will,
He wept for more to conquer still!

Nor of the lurid lustre thrown

By chivalric Romance,

Round him of modern Macedon,

Imperial, conquering France:

AMBITION-TRUE AND FALSE. 59

For, hark! as rolls from battle-plain
The dying groans of myriads slain,
How burst we from the trance!

How dim his deeds of evil name
The glorious lustre of his fame!

Not such as these the fame to choose,
Would true Ambition teach;

Not such as theirs the means to use
That lofty height to reach!
Sad is the lesson, dark and stern,
From the impartial page we learn
Which tells the fate of each:
Ah! who would fill a despot's throne,
His hated memory to own?

How fell from his imperial height
To deeper depths below,
The Corsican's all-daring flight,
Historic page will show ;

It tells-Macedon's mighty king
Died in his drunken revelling;

And Cæsar's fate we know

He through a thousand battles pass'd
To die a tyrant's death at last!