- leaping, slipping, — springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone,her stockings cut from her feet, while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank. "Yer a brave gal, now, whoever ye ar!" said the man, with an oath. Eliza recognized the voice and face of a man who owned a farm not far from her old home. 66 Oh, Mr. Symmes !-save me, do save me, me!" said Eliza. 66 gal!" 66 do hide Why, what's this?" said the man. Why, if 'tan't Shelby's "My child! — this boy! - he'd sold him! There is his Mas'r," said she, pointing to the Kentucky shore. "Oh, Mr. Symmes, you've got a little boy!" 66 66 “So I have,” said the man, as he roughly, but kindly, drew her up the steep bank. Besides, you're a right brave gal. I like grit, wherever I see it!" When they had gained the top of the bank, the man paused. "I'd be glad to do something for ye," said he; "but then there's nowhar I could take ye. The best I can do is to tell ye to go thar," said he, pointing to a large white house which stood by itself, off the main street of the village. "Go thar; they're kind folks. Thar's no kind o' danger but they'll help you, they're up to all that sort o' thing." "The Lord bless you!" said Eliza, earnestly. "No 'casion, no 'casion in the world," said the man. I've done's of no 'count." "And oh, surely, sir, you won't tell any one!" "Go to thunder, gal! course not," said the man. sensible gal, as you are. shall have it, for all me." "What What do you take a feller for? In "Come, now, go along like a likely, You've arnt your liberty, and you The woman folded her child to her bosom, and walked firmly and swiftly away. The man stood and looked after her. 66 Shelby, now, mebbe won't think this yer the most neighborly thing in the world; but what's a feller to do? If he catches one of my gals in the same fix, he's welcome to pay back. Somehow I never could see no kind o' crittur a strivin' and pantin', and trying to clar theirselves, with the dogs arter 'em, and go agin 'em. Besides, I don't see no kind o' 'casion for me to be hunter and catcher fer other folks, neither!" So spoke this poor heathenish Kentuckian, who had not been instructed in his constitutional relations, and consequently was betrayed into acting in a sort of Christianized manner, which, if he had been better situated and more enlightened, he would not have been left to do. SONG OF THE BANNER AT DAYBREAK.1 BY WALT WHITMAN. [WALT WHITMAN, an American poet, was born at West Hills, Long Island, May 31, 1819. In early life he drifted from one occupation to another, and was at various times a school-teacher, compositor, carpenter, and journalist. During the Civil War, as volunteer nurse, he tended the wounded in the army hospitals of Washington and Virginia, and undermined his health by continued exertion and exposure. After the war he was a government clerk in Washington until 1873, when he was disabled by paralysis. He removed to Camden, N.J., and lived there up to the time of his death, which occurred March 27, 1892. "Leaves of Grass" (1855) is his best-known work; and next in importance are: "Drum Taps," "Democratic Vistas," "Two Rivulets," "Specimen Days and Collect," "Good-by, My Fancy."] O a new song, a free song, Poet. Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer, By the wind's voice and that of the drum, By the banner's voice and child's voice and sea's voice and father's voice, Low on the ground and high in the air, On the ground where father and child stand, Where the banner at daybreak is flapping. Words! book words! what are you? My song is there in the open air, and I must sing, With the banner and pennant a flapping. I'll weave the chord and twine in Man's desire and babe's desire, I'll twine them in, I'll put in life, 1 By permission of Horace C. Traubel and Small, Maynard & Co., publishers of "Leaves of Grass," 1898. I'll put the bayonet's flashing point, I'll let bullets and slugs whiz, With the banner and pennant a flapping. Come up here, bard, bard, Come up here, soul, soul, Pennant. Come up here, dear little child, To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with the measureless light. Child. Father, what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger? And what does it say to me all the while? Father. Nothing, my babe, you see in the sky, And nothing at all to you it says but look you, my babe, Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the money shops opening, And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with goods; These, ah these, how valued and toiled for these! How envied by all the earth. Poet. Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high, On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its channels, On floats the wind over the breast of the sea setting in toward land, The great steady wind from west or west by south, Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters. But I am not the sea nor the red sun, I am not the wind with girlish laughter, Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which lashes, And the shore sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant, Aloft there flapping and flapping. Child. O father, it is alive-it is full of people-it has children, O it stretches it spreads and runs so fast - O my father, What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much it displeases me; Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants aloft, But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid-walled houses. Banner and Pennant. Speak to the child, O bard, out of Manhattan, To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan, not why, and yet we know For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing, Poet. I hear and see not strips of cloth alone, I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry, I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty! I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing, I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then, I use the wings of the land bird and use the wings of the sea bird, and look down as from a height, I do not deny the precious results of peace, I see populous cities with wealth incalculable, I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their fields or barns, I see mechanics working, I see buildings everywhere founded, going up, or finished, I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks drawn by the locomotives, I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, I see far in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell awhile hovering, I pass to the lumber forests of the North, and again to the Southern plantation, and again to California; Sweeping the whole I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings, earned wages, See the Identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and haughty States, (and many more to come,) See forts on the shores of harbors, see ships sailing in and out; Then over all, (aye! aye!) my little and lengthened pennant shaped like a sword, Runs swiftly up indicating war and defiance—and now the halyards have raised it, Side of my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner, Banner and Pennant. Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave! We may be terror and carnage, and are so now, Not now are we any one of these spacious and haughty States, (nor any five, nor ten,) Nor market nor depot we, nor money bank in the city, But these and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the mines below, are ours, And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and small, And the fields they moisten, and the crops and the fruits are ours, Bays and channels and ships sailing in and out are ours over all, Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of square miles, the capitals, The forty millions of people, - O bard! in life and death supreme, We, even we, henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up above, Not for the present alone, for a thousand years chanting through you, This song to the soul of one poor little child. Child. O my father, I like not the houses, They will never to me be anything, nor do I like money, But to mount up there I would like, O father dear, that banner I like, That pennant I would be and must be. Father. Child of mine, you fill me with anguish, To be that pennant would be too fearful, Little you know what it is this day, and after this day, forever, It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy everything, |