Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength, And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn. But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length Into such wail as this!-and we sit on forlorn When the man-child is born. Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the west, And one of them shot in the east by the sea! Both both my boys!-If in keeping the feast You want a great song for your Italy free, Let none look at me! -Elizabeth Barrett Browning. SONG. From a Masque written to do honor to the marriage of the Lady Elizabeth and the Count Palatine, February 14, 1613. This daughter of James I. became the mother of the Electress of Hanover, and it is through her that the present Royal Family of England succeeded to the throne. Shake off your heavy trance, To play to, for the Moon to lead, SHERMAN. Died Feb. 14, 1891. Glory and honor and fame and everlasting laudation For our captains who loved not war, but fought for the life of the nation; Who knew that, in all the land, one slave meant strife, not peace; Who fought for freedom, not glory; made war that war might cease. Glory and honor and fame; the beating of muffled drums; The wailing funeral dirge, as the flagwrapped coffin comes. Fame and honor and glory, and joy for a noble soul; For a full and splendid life, and laureled rest at the goal. Glory and honor and fame; the pomp that a soldier prizes; The league-long waving line as the marching falls and rises; Rumbling of caissons and guns; the clatter of horses' feet, And a million awe-struck faces far down the waiting street. But better than martial woe, and the pageant of civic sorrow; Better than praise of today, or the statue we build tomorrow; Better than honor and glory, and History's iron pen, Was the thought of duty done and the love of his fellow-men. -Richard Watson Gilder. Of out-worn kingly sway To gloom the Future with a blighted That curse is swept away; And in our ears, That heard but now the universal groan, The prison shot and tortured prisoner's moan, The chorus of a people freed is blown From the verge of coming years. Is it not well that far beyond, below, We have made sure what tides of feeling To make the people's life? How deeply shrined the sacred flag has In all the toiling million-hearted race, The youthful giant of the nation wakes, Lays down for her his ready life, or shakes The world with deathless deed. Is it not well-the hope, as if new born, The slender herald of the promised morn That comes with healing for her wound- Of that old East that is the radiant West While in her prostrate place as loaded With chains of might and blinded hate and wrong,, She trembles at the first heard morning song From across the morning sea? Is it not well, my brethren? There is One song through all the land; fade, With old lines drawn in sand. For the Republic sees a purpose new While like a sun that burns with clearer Sweeps rising through the sky her spotless fame, And lights a land that knows one love, One flag, one faith, one hope. THE SPIRIT OF THE MAINE. The blowing up of the Maine in the harbor of Havana on the night of Feb. 15, 1898, was the event which precipitated the war with Spain which had been impending for some months. In battle-line of sombre gray Our ships of war advance, And Kelly dropped his head. While Shea-they call him Scholar Jack Went down the list of the dead. Officers, seamen, gunners, marines, The crews of the gig and yawl, The bearded man and the lad in his teens, Carpenters, coal passers-all. Then, knocking the ashes from out his pipe, Said Burke in an offhand way: "We're all in that dead man's list by Cripe! Kelly and Burke and Shea." "Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain," Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. "Wherever there's Kellys there's trouble," said Burke, "Wherever fighting's the game, Or a spice of danger in grown man's work," Said Kelly "you'll find my name." "And do we fall short," said Burke, get ting mad, "When it's touch and go for life?" Said Shea, "It's thirty-odd years, bedad, Since I charged to drum and fife Up Marye's Heights, and my old canteen Stopped a rebel ball on its way; There were blossoms of blood on our sprigs of green Kelly and Burke and SheaAnd the dead didn't brag." here's to the flag!" "Well, Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. "I wish 'twas in Ireland, for there's the place," Said Burke, "that we'd die by right, In the cradle of our soldier race, After one good, stand-up fight. My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill, And fighting was not his trade; But his rusty pike's in the cabin still, With Hessian blood on the blade.' "Aye, aye," said Kelly, "the pikes were great When the word was 'clear the way!' We were thick on the roll in ninety And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy, And up in the Pyrenees. Before Dunkirk, on Landen's plain, We're all over Austria, France and Wherever they pitched a tent. We've died for England, from Waterloo To Egypt and Dargai; And still there's enough for a corps or crew, Kelly and Burke and Shea." "Well, here is to good honest fighting blood!" Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. "Oh, the fighting races don't die out, If they seldom die in bed, For love is first in their hearts, no doubt," Said Burke; then Kelly said: "When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands, The angel with the sword, And the battle-dead from a hundred lands Are ranged in one big horde, Our line, that for Gabriel's trumpet waits, Will stretch three deep that day, From Jehosaphat to the Golden GatesKelly and Burke and Shea." "Well, here's thank God for the race and the sod!" Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. -Joseph I. C. Clarke. February 16. ELISHA KENT KANE. Elisha Kent Kane, an American scientist and explorer, died on Feb. 16, 1857. He was noted chiefly for his Arctic explorations. O, Mother Earth, thy task is done With him who slumbers here below; From thy cold Arctic brow he won A glory purer than thy snow. Thy warmer bosom gently nursed The dying hero; for his eye We feel no fear that time shall keep Our hero's memory. Let us move A little from the world to weep, And for our portion take his love. -George H. Boker. February 17. HEINE'S GRAVE. A celebrated German poet and critic of Hebrew descent. For the last twenty-four years of his life he lived in Paris, where he became the victim of an incurable and painful malady. Some of the best known lyrics of Germany are among his songs. He died on Feb. 17, 1856. But was it thou-I think Had every other gift, but wanted love; Charm is the glory which makes How without charm wilt thou draw, And artists envious, and the mob profane. We know all this, we know! Therefore a secret unrest -Matthew Arnold. |