Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/392

TWO WORLDS — THE OLD AND THE NEW.

Peace, in her palace over the Atlantic,
From the New World deals her awards around,
While war's leashed hounds, a-strain, for bloodshed frantic,
In our Old World can scarce be held in bound.

Lo! here, each nation armed against its neighbor;
Cross in the face of Crescent reared for fight:
There to the blessed battlefields of labor
United States that all the world invite.

For a far different shock from the impingings
Of broadsides 'twixt a "Chesapeake" and "Shannon,"
The strife of Corliss and his monster engines,
With Cyclops Krupp and Essen's monster cannon.

Happy young Titan, that between two oceans,
Thy guardian Atlantic and Pacific,
Growest apart from our Old World's commotions —
With room to spread, and space for powers prolific.

Wisely exchanging rifles, swords, and rammers,
For spades and ploughshares, axes, saws, and treadles,
Thou putt'st thy strength in engines and steamhammers,
And thy gun-metal mouldest into medals.

Earth has no clime, no sky, but thou commandest;
No growth, but thy wide-spreading soil can bear;
No ore, but the rich ground on which thou standest,
Somewhere or other, bids thee stoop and share.

No height thou hast but all thy sons may reach;
No good, but all are free to reap its profit:
No truth, but all thy race may learn and teach,
No lie, but whoso lifts its mask may scoff it.

Oh happy in thy stars, still rising higher,
Happy e'en in thy stripes so lightly borne.
How far may thy meridian growth aspire,
That showest so majestic in thy morn?

To what height may not Heaven's high favor lead thee,
In cycle of the ages yet to be,
When these first hundred years of life have made thee,
For arts and strength, the giant that we see!

Punch.

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INDIAN SUMMER.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."

Weep, weep, November rain:
White mists, fall like a shroud
Upon the dead earth's ended joy and pain;
Wild blasts, lift up your voices, cry aloud,
Dash down the last leaves from the quivering boughs,
And wail about the house,
O melancholy wind,
Like one that seeketh and can never find.

But come not, O sweet days,
Out of yon cloudless blue,
Ghosts of so many dear remembered Mays,
With faces like dead lovers, who died true.
Come not, lest we go seek with eyes all wet,
Primrose and violet,
Forgetting that they lie
Deep in the mould till winter has gone by.

— Till winter has gone by!
Come then, days bright and strange,
Quiet, while this mad world whirls reckless by,
Restful, amidst this life of restless change.
Shine on, sweet Indian summer, tender, calm,
The year's last thankful psalm
To God you smiling bring.
— We too will smile: and wait the eternal spring.

Sunday Magazine.

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LEAL SOUVENIR!

[WORDS UNDER A PORTRAIT IN THE NEW
WING OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY, BY JOHN
VAN EYCK.]

Is it a friend who is painted here,
Rugged of feature, and homely of dress?
Did he inspire such a leal souvenir,
All those years back on the banks of the Lesse?

Was he a friend as a friend should be,
Loyal alike in praise, and in blame;
Prone to be silent, yet prompt to foresee
Every call upon friendship's name?

Was he so steadfast that no one could e'er,
E'en for a moment, his constancy doubt?
Honest and faithful, so just and so fair,
His whisper meant more than another man's shout?

It was ages ago, and mankind, we are told,
Has since become selfish, and hard, and austere;
Yet I think it were strange, if 'twixt friends, new and old,
We did not own, too, just one leal souvenir!

Spectator.H. A. Duff