II. O land beloved-whose Washington Whose patriots bled till life was done, 'Twas Freedom's shrine they sought to rear ; By that we ever stand: 'Tis Liberty that makes so dear Our own blest Native Land! III. Dear Native Land!-the world's oppressed Turn longingly to thee: Not for thy wealth, thy might confessed, Thy noble Unity. Not for thy wide, embracing sphere, Thy sons that waiting stand: 'Tis Liberty that makes so dear, Our own blest Native Land! IV. Dear Native Land-dear Father Land! May bounteous life, from God's good hand, May Right and Truth have naught to fear 'Tis Liberty that makes so dear Our own blest Native Land! I fancy that I see the captious flout and the ignorant sneer at the assertion made in the remarks precedent to the last song, that the love of a liberty con sistent with truth and right was never known until after that liberty was successfully established by the fathers of our Republic. And in fact I have seen Americans talked down to (by British writers, it is almost needless to say, and I am sorry in very deed that it is so), on account of the importance which they regarded the present crisis of their government as possessing to the whole world for all time. These folk I shall send for their answer to Lord Brougham, who, remarking in his "Political Philosophy" (Vol. iii. p. 329) upon the establishment of our national independence, and particularly our adoption of the republican form of government, and the federal plan of constitution, uses the following sufficiently comprehensive language: "This is, perhaps, the most important event in the history of our species." The question whether that government and that constitution shall be perpetuated or destroyed cannot be of much less significance than their original formation : a fact in which there is no just cause for self-complacency, much less for the assumption of an inflated air of consequence; but which should increase our sense of responsibility, and fix us more firmly in our determination to absolve ourselves with honor of the momentous duties to mankind which the development of our race has laid upon us. The sentiment excited by this look along the path that we have trodden, and that which lies before us, finds a stirring expression in the following noble lyric.* *I regret to say that the envelope containing the name of the author of this song has been lost. THE NATION'S HYMN. Our past is bright and grand In the purple tints of time; And 'tis ours to lead the van, Of the moving hosts of man! We are sprung from noble sires, The gifts of every clime, Brothers then, in Union, strong, We shall ever lead the van, As the nations sweep along, To fulfil the hopes of man! We are brothers; and we know We shall sweep the land and sea, With the steady step of fate! Brothers then, in Union, strong, See our prairies, sky-surrounded! And our giant rivers roll! Such a land, and such alone, As the nations sweep along Yes, the spirit of our land, With the forests for his crest,- Shall yet lead on the nations, To fulfil the hopes of man! Too picturesque and fanciful, with all its strength and spirit, for a national hymn, this song has also a serious blemish of excess, if not of assumption, in the fourth line of the second stanza. A blemish which has its opposite in the following pretty, plaintive, and highly wrought supplication; which seems to have been written not only from the depths of a luxurious humiliation, but with the mistaken notion that a national hymn must necessarily be religious in its character. A NATIONAL HYMN. BY JS. H O strongest of Helpers! we bring Thee our weakness! The fairest of lambs in Thy flock of the Nations, Can wash off the blood from the snow of its fleece. Our Eagle, slow-waking from indolent languor, Feels a weight on his wings-droops his eye from the sun; And the wail of his shame, and the scream of his anger, Have startled a million brave hearts into one. To the arms of Thine infinite tenderness take us; The children of those whom thou lovedst so much. |