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remained unchanged except the last four lines.

originally concluded:

:

"As fixed as yonder orb divine,

That saw thy bannered blaze unfurled,
Shall thy proud st: :s resplendent shine,
The guard and glory of the world.”

It

These lines were very unsatisfactory to Drake, and he said to Fitz-Green Halleck, "Fitz, can't you suggest a better stanza?" Whereupon the brilliant author of Marco Bozzaris sat down and wrote in a glowing burst of inspiration the four concluding lines:

"Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us? With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?"

Drake immediately agreed that these were a splendid improvement on the former ending, and incorporated them into his one poem that is certain of immortality. It was first published in the New York Evening Post, in a series known as the Croaker Pieces, The American Flag being the last one of the

series.

The young poet was entirely free from vanity and affectation, and had no morbid seeking for popular applause. When he was on his deathbed, at his wife's request, Doctor DeKay collected and copied

all his poems which could be found and took them to him. "See, Joe," said he to him, "what I have done." "Burn them," he replied; "they are value

less."

Drake's impulsive nature, as well as the spirit and force, yet simplicity, of expression, with his artless manner, gained him many friends. He had that native politeness which springs from benevolence that would stop to pick up the hat or the crutch of an old servant, or fly to the relief of a child. His acquaintance with Fitz-Green Halleck arose in a romantic incident on the Battery one day when, in a retiring shower, the heavens were spanned by a rainbow. DeKay and Drake were together, and Halleck, a new acquaintance, was talking with them; the conversation taking the turn of some passing expression of the wishes of the moment, Halleck whimsically remarked that it would be heaven for him, just then, to ride on that rainbow and read Campbell. The idea was very pleasing to Drake. He seized Halleck by the hand and from that moment until his untimely death they were bosom friends.

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