Boom boom! till river, and fort and field Are over-clouded by the battle's breath; Then from the fort a gleam and a crashing gun, steam! But victory, victory! Unto God all praise be ever rendered, See, Boy Brittan, see! They strike! Hurrah! The Fort has surrendered! Shout! Shout! my warrior boy! And wave your cap and clap your hands for joy! "Victory! victory!" is the shout "The day is ours-thanks to the brave endeavor Of heroes, boy, like thee! Glory and deathless love to all who shared with thee! The day is ours! The day is ours forever! And kisses of love for thee And a mother's happy tears; and a virgin's wreath of flowers. But suddenly wrecked and wrapt in seething steam, And there, among them, at the Captain's feet Laurels and tears for thee, Boy, laurels and tears for thee! Laurels of light moist with the precious dew Of the inmost heart of the Nation's loving heart, And blest by the balmy breath of the Beautiful and the True! Moist, moist with the luminous breath of the singing spheres And the Nation's starry tears; And tremble-touched by the pulse-like gush and start Of the universal music of the heart, And all deep sympathy! Laurels and tears for thee, Boy Laurels of Light and tears of Love forevermore for thee And the mantle of Immortality! And the flowers of Love and immortal Youth, And the tender heart-tokens of all truth And the everlasting victory! And the breath and bliss of Liberty, And the loving kiss of Liberty; And the infinite love-span of the skies, That cover the Valleys of Paradise. For thee and all the braves who rest with thee! And for one and all who died with thee, And now lie side by side with thee! On the solid land or the heaving seas, Dear warrior-boy-like thee. O, the victory-the victory belongs to thee! God ever keeps the brightest crown for such as thee, O young and brave and early and thrice blest-- Thy country turns once more to kiss thy youthful brow, And takes thee gently-gently to her breast, Forceythe Willson. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. (Prize Declamation, May, 1889; N. Mo. State Normal.) The fall of our illustrious and unhappy city was supernatural. The destruction of the conquered was against the first principles of Roman polity; and to the last hour of our national existence, Rome held out offers of peace, and lamented our frantic determination to be undone. But the decree was gone forth from a mightier throne. During the latter days of the siege, a hostility to which that of man was as a grain of sand to the tempest that drives it on-overpowered our strength and senses. Fearful shapes and voices in the air; visions startling us from our short and troubled sleep; lunacy in its most hideous forms; sudden death in the midst of vigor; the fury of the elements let loose upon our unsheltered heads; we had every terror and evil that could beset human nature, but pestilence; the most probable of all in a city crowded with the famishing, the diseased, the wounded, and the dead. Yet, though the streets were covered with the unburied; though every well and trench was streaming with gore; though six hundred thousand corpses lay flung over the rampart, naked to the sun-pestilence came not; if it had come, the enemy would have been scared away. But the "abomination of desolation," the pagan standard, was fixed; where it was to remain until the plough passed over the ruins of Jerusalem! On one night, that fatal night, no man laid his head upon his pillow. Heaven and earth were in conflict. Meteors burned above us; the ground shook under our feet; the volcano blazed; the wind burst forth in irresistible blasts, and swept the living and the dead in whirlwinds, far into the desert. We heard the bellowing of the distant Mediterranean, as if its waters were at our side, swelled by a new deluge. The lakes and rivers roared, and inundated the land. The fiery sword shot out tenfold fire. Showers of blood fell. Thunder pealed from every quarter of the heaven. Lightning in immense sheets, withering eye and soul, burned from the zenith to the ground, and marked its track by forests on flame, and the shattered summits of the hills. Defence was now unthought of; for the mortal hostility had passed from the mind. Our hearts quaked for fear; but it was to see the powers of Heaven shaken. All cast away the shield and the spear, and crouched before the descending judgment. We were conscience-smitten. Our cries of remorse, anguish, and horror, were heard through the uproar of the storm. We howled to the caverns to hide us; we plunged into the sepulchres to escape the wrath that consumed the living; we would have buried ourselves under the mountains! I knew the cause, the unspeakable cause; and knew that the last hour of crime was at hand. A few fugitives, astonished to see one man among them not sunk into the lowest feebleness of fear, came round me, and besought me to lead them to some place of safety, if such were now to be found on the earth. I told them openly that they were to die, and counselled them to die in the hallowed ground of the temple. They followed me, through streets encumbered with every shape of human suffering, to the foot of Mount Moriah. But, beyond that, we found advance impossible. Piles of clouds, whose darkness was palpable, even in the midnight in which we stood, covered the holy hill. Still, not to be daunted by anything that man could overcome, I cheered my disheartened band, and attempted to lead the way up the ascent. But I had scarcely entered the cloud, when I was swept downward by a gust that tore the rocks in a flinty shower around me. Now came the last and most wondrous sign that marked the fate of Israel. While I lay helpless, I heard the whirlwind roar through the cloudy hill; the vapors began to revolve, and the clouds rose, and rapidly shaped themselves into the forms of battlements and towers. The sound of voices was heard within, low and distant, yet strangely sweet. The lustre brightened, and the airy building rose, tower on tower, and battlement on battlement. In awe that held us mute, we knelt and gazed upon this more than mortal architecture, which continued rising and spreading, and glowing with serener light, still soft and silvery, yet to which the broadest moonbeam was dim. At last, it stood forth to earth and heaven the colossal image of the first temple, the building raised by the wisest man, and consecrated by the visible glory. All Jerusalem saw the image; and the shout that in the midst of their despair ascended from its thousands and tens of thousands, told what proud remembrances were there. But a hymn was heard that might have hushed the world. Never fell on my ear, never on the human sense, a sound so majestic, yet so subduing; so full of melancholy, yet of grandeur. The cloudy portal opened, and from it marched a host, such as man never had seen before, such as man never shall see but once again; the guardian angels of the city of David-they came forth glorious, but with woe in all their steps; the stars upon their helmets dim; their robes stained; tears flowing down their celestial beauty. "Let us go hence," was their song of sorrow; "Let us go hence," was answered by the sad echoes of the mountains. "Let us go hence," swelled upon the night, to the farthest limits of the land. The procession lingered long on the summit of the hill. Then the thunder pealed; and they rose at the command, diffusing waves of light over the expanse of heaven. Their chorus was heard, still magnificent and melancholy, when their splendor was diminished to the brightness of a star. The thunder roared again; the cloudy temple was scattered on the winds; and darkness, the omen of her grave, settled upon Jerusalem!-Croly. |