Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1854-09-27
From the Boston.Tran eript September l2.l
THE PRIZE ADDRESS.

The following address received the prize of 800
offered by the directors of the Boston Theatre for
suitable poetical production, to be spoken at the
opening of the edifice erected by that company
The committee by whom the award was made con-
sisted of Messrs Geo. S. Hillard, G. G. FELTON,, Oil
yer Wendell Holiness Epes Sargent and JAS T.
Fields. The poem will bear criticism in every point
1t is production of sterling merit and will hold its
place among the best pieces written for the
stage There are lines in it quite worthy of the
great master of English heroic verse. We proud
to add from own city to the ranks of that high
class of poets who have written that grand old metre
the proud heroic in all its purity and ringing elo
quence.
Welcome, bright eyes that make our splendors pale
lie reverend heads! your generous hands all, hail
And thou, proud city to Thy trumphs past
Add this tonight, nor let it be thy last:
be 1T thy glory to the coming
10 have transmitted no aduiterate STAGE;
That aftertimes may count this beauteous dome
Dear as the hearthstone of a fathers home
Back, airy bsingsl people of the brainl
Ye kingly shadows in your graves remain:
Stay you weird women watt the fatal bell
Thou master OF the charm! suspend the spell:
Be not impatient to burst,
You shall be summoned, but your herald first.
Souls of dead bards that served our ancient art
Poets! who largely read the human heart,
Tell us why man, when life serenely glides,
Loves the fierce motion that dsturbs the tides?
What god mpels him, his land is free,
To play the hero that he cannot be?
What strong illusion, native in his breast,
Made action charm him in his day of rest i?
- When arms and arseuas are idle shows,
And naves playthngs for the worlds repose,
The heart, like Nenli, never known to stir,
Becomes a mirror of the things that were
Then grows the wish and then is giv'n the power
To be and feel beyond life's little hour.
The soldier Eschylus, at such time,
From the dark realm OF passion and of crime
nd made he dea6es T p bS earh
Sat in the sunshine, at the solemn play
When to the music of a single flute
The verse was uttered that for us is mute
When through the orchestra with slow advance
The Dorian led the choral dance
Cold that snu-oh. dead Lehes fen
That did not fight at Saams again.
But long ere this, when Bacchus was divine
At the mad vintage, where the new-made wine
Fired the rude jewellers, the learned say
First tn uncouth resemblance of q play:
What time Arion of the Lesbian isle
70 the wild chorus gave grayer style:
Yet bark the echo of a tragic hymn:
Lol the fell Moenads with their visage smeared
And men made Satyrs by the mask and beard.
Such rites have been where now this temple stands:
The savage dramas of the Indian bands:
Near the blue lake and by the midnight fire.
See the red artist and the naked chor!-
When the great Sachem, with his Pequod court,
After the fray, assembled at the sport
See See twas but yesterday-their dance escribe
The hunt, The war, the triumph of their tribe:
These actors-but their show is dome
Their last spectator was the setting
In Charless days, when tragedy was mean,
Was Charles alone at fault? historian, tell
We love f the sturdy puritan too well;
Spite of the bigot revere the man.
What though he left polluted arts behind
He brought his sword, his Bible and his mind.
Something Of that austerity be yours:
Since Folly loves what easy Taste endures:
Let purged altar and its blameless priest
Honor the three-hed city of the East,
That to the wise theatre may
A nobler school, a loftier Academe
And Shakspeare's mind, transplanted TO the shore
Whose rocks gold, whoes sands shining ore,
(Or far as Freedoms onward march may draw
Arts, without arms, and without conquest, Law
A sacred well. from whose oerhowng brink
Each generation in its turn may drink
So shall your children thank you, OF alone
For wealth of empire grasping every zone,
But write these words Mclnory's grateful page;
Sons of the Pilgrims! you redeemed our stage.