And his eyes
Wear the guise
Of a purpose pure and wise,
As the love of them is lifted to a something in the skies
That is bright
Red and white,
With a blur of starry light,
As it laughs in silken ripples to the breezes day and night.
There are deep
Hushes creep
O'er the pulses as they leap,
As thy tumult, fainter growing, on the silence falls asleep,
While the prayer
Rising there
Wills the sea and earth and air
As a heritage to Freedom's sons and daughters everywhere.
Then, with sound
As profound
As the thunderings resound,
Come thy wild reverberations in a throe that shakes the ground,
And a cry
Flung on high,
Like the flag it flutters by,
Wings rapturously upward till it nestles in the sky.
O the drum!
There is some
Intonation in thy grum
Monotony of utterance that strikes the spirit dumb,
As we hear
Through the clear
And unclouded atmosphere,
Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the ear!
TOM JOHNSON'S QUIT.
A passel o' the boys last night--
An' me amongst 'em--kindo got
To talkin' Temper'nce left an' right,
An' workin' up "blue-ribbon," _hot_;
An' while we was a-countin' jes'
How many bed gone into hit
An' signed the pledge, some feller says,--
"Tom Johnson's quit!"
We laughed, of course--'cause Tom, you know,
_He's_ spiled more whisky, boy an' man,
And seed more trouble, high an' low,
Than any chap but Tom could stand:
And so, says I "_He's_ too nigh dead.
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