New

World

Stand by the Flag!

and Old Stand by the Flag! Its stars, like meteors gleam

Have lighted Arctic icebergs, southern seas, And shone responsive to the stormy beaming

Of old Arcturus and the Pleiades.

Stand by the Flag! Its stripes have streamed
in glory,

To foes a fear, to friends a festal robe,
And spread in rhythmic lines the sacred story
Of Freedom's triumphs over all the globe.

Stand by the Flag! On land and ocean billow
By it your fathers stood unmoved and true,
Living, defended; dying, from their pillow,
With their last blessing, passed it on to you.

Stand by the Flag! Immortal heroes bore it
Through sulphurous smoke, deep moat and
armed defence;

And their imperial Shades still hover o'er it,
A guard celestial from Omnipotence.

JOHN NICHOLS WILDER.

$6

At Gibraltar*

I

England, I stand on thy imperial ground,
Not all a stranger; as thy bugles blow,

I feel within my blood old battles flow-
The blood whose ancient founts in thee are found
Still surging dark against the Christian bound
Wide Islam presses; well its people know
Thy heights that watch them wandering be-
low;

I think how Lucknow heard their gathering sound.

I turn, and meet the cruel, turbaned face.
England, 'tis sweet to be so much thy son!
I feel the conqueror in my blood and race;
Last night Trafalgar awed me, and to-day
Gibraltar wakened; hark, thy evening gun
Startles the desert over Africa!

GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY.

New World and Old Glory

Taken from "North Shore Watch and Other Poems" (copyrighted 1890). By courtesy of The Macmillan Com

pany.

At Gibraltar

New World

and Old Glory

II

Thou art the rock of empire, set mid-seas Between the East and West, that God has built;

Advance thy Roman borders where thou wilt, While run thy armies true with his decrees; Law, justice, liberty-great gifts are these; Watch that they spread where English blood is spilt,

Lest, mixed and sullied with his country's guilt, The soldier's life-stream flow, and Heaven displease!

Two swords there are: one naked, apt to smite,
Thy blade of war; and, battle-storied, one
Rejoices in the sheath, and hides from light.

American I am; would wars were done!
Now westward, look, my country bids good-
night-

Peace to the world from ports without a gun!
GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY.

Faith and Freedom

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals

hold

New World und Old

Glory

Our Mother Tongue

Beyond the vague Atlantic deep,
Far as the farthest prairies sweep,
Where forest-glooms the nerve appal,
Where burns the radiant western fall,
One duty lies on old and young,-
With filial piety to guard,

As on its greenest native sward,
The glory of the English tongue.

That ample speech! That subtle speech!
Apt for the need of all and each:
Strong to endure, yet prompt to bend
Wherever human feelings tend.
Preserve its force-expand its powers;
And through the maze of civic life,
In Letters, Commerce, even in Strife,
Forget not it is yours and ours.

LORD HOUGHTON.
(Richard Monckton Milnes.)

New

The English Language

World

and Old Give me of every language, first my vigorous Glory

English

Stored with imported wealth, rich in its natural

mines

Grand in its rhythmical cadence, simple for household employment—

Worthy the poet's song, fit for the speech of a

man.

Fitted for every use like a great majestical river, Blending thy various streams, stately thou flowest along,

Bearing the white-winged ship of Poesy over thy bosom,

Laden with spices that come out of the tropical isles,

Fancy's pleasuring yacht with its bright and fluttering pennons,

Logic's frigates of war and the toil-worn barges of trade.

How art thou freely obedient unto the poet or

speaker

When, in a happy hour, thought into speech he

translates;