I wandered high, and gazed upon the deep! 
  Nature’s best fortress, which no warlike foe,
  No martial scheme, can ever overthrow. 
  Art, too, had added strength, and given a grace
  That smooths the rugged aspect of thy face. 
  What wondrous halls along the mountain made! 
  What trains of cannon in those halls arrayed! 
  They frown imperious from their lofty state,
  Prepared around to deal the scourge of fate.

* * * * *

=_Elijah P. Lovejoy,[81] 1802-1816._=

From “Lines to my Mother.”

=_355._=

  There is a fire that burns on earth,
    A pure and holy flame;
  It came to men from heavenly birth,
    And still it is the same
  As when it burned the chords along
  That bore the first-born seraph’s song;
    Sweet as the hymn of gratitude
  That swelled to Heaven when “all was good.” 
  No passion in the choirs above
  Is purer than a mother’s love.
       * * * * *
  My mother!  I am far away
    From home, and love, and thee;
  And stranger hands may heap the clay
    That soon may cover me;
  Yet we shall meet—­perhaps not here,
  But in yon shining, azure sphere;
  And if there’s aught assures me more,
    Ere yet my spirit fly,
  That Heaven has mercy still in store
    For such a wretch as I,
  ’Tis that a heart so good as thine
  Must bleed, must burst, along with mine.

  And life is short, at best, and time
    Must soon prepare the tomb;
  And there is sure a happier clime
    Beyond this world of gloom. 
  And should it be my happy lot,
    After a life of care and pain,
    In sadness spent, or spent in vain,
  To go where sighs and sin are not,
    ’Twill make the half my heaven to be,
    My mother, evermore with thee.

[Footnote 81:  Born in Maine, but lived at the West; was editor of a religions newspaper, which early assailed slavery as wrong; lost his life in defending his press against a mob at Alton, Illinois, July, 1836.]

* * * * *

=_Edward Coate Pinkney, 1802-1828_.= (Manual, p. 521.)

=356=.  A HEALTH.

  I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone;
  A woman, of her gentle sex the seeming paragon,
  To whom the better elements and kindly stars have given
  A form so fair, that, like the air, ’tis less of earth than heaven.

  Her every tone is music’s own, like those of morning birds;
  And something more than melody dwells ever in her words. 
  The coinage of her heart are they, and from her lips each flows,
  As one may see the burdened bee forth issue from the rose.

  Affections are as thoughts to her, the measures of her hours;
  Her feelings have the fragrance and the freshness of young flowers;
  And lovely passions, changing oft, so fill her, she appears
  The image of themselves by turns, the idol of past years.