Daily American organ. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1856, 1855-03-19
AMERICAN ORGAN.
From the Knickerbocker Magazine.
A Patriotic Hymn.

A Patriotic Hymn.
New England mountains, Texan plains,
Virginia slopes, Nebraska wales
One noble language breathes its strains
Along the freedom Of your gales;
One mighty heart pulsates beside
The rolling of your every tide.
One patriot glory spreadeth white
Seraphic wings above your past,
And rainbows in eternal light
The costly blood which showered fast
On battle-helds of ancient time,
When love Of country was crime.
Heroic memories strike their root
Along your every hill and shore;
And not flower beneath the foot
But Dungeons proudly from the gore
OF noble breasts, which calmly met
The charging foreman's bayonet.
The echoes of old battles roll
In thunder down your cataracts,
And utter startlingly the soul
OF glorious times and deathess acts
The changless sun-bow waveth there
Your stripes along Its native air.
A deathless rush Of crimson rills
Through spectral ranks runs steeply down
New England's first of battle-hills,
BY Freedoms sickle fercely mown;
But family worthy of such strains.
The ice upon the Delaware
Still trembles meath unshodden feet,
Which over-track its chilly glare
With life-blood oozing through the sleet,
The footballs of a race Of men
Whose like we shall not see again.
The horn of MARION echoes clear
Through Cardinals aged pines,
Whose every dew-drop, like tear,
Is dashed aside by hammered vines;
Which, faithess Of the heros fall,
Still vibrate TO his battle-call.
The heart of MERCER breatheth yet
Through every foot of Trenton's clay,
MoSTooMERY's last lfe-blood wet
The snow-drifts of Northern day:
These stains have melted from the snow,
But will not from our memories 20.
The vivid thought Of FRANKLIN beams
In every lightning-glare that flies
Above our zone trayersing streams
Along our ocean-bounded skies;
And bids us open revcrent souls
To Truths eternal thunder-rolls
Mount Vernon bosoms In its sod
That generations noblest heart,
Whom Greece had shrined a demi-god,
man without a counterpart:
The throbbings of that patriot breast
Are echoed in our farthest West.
Such heroes splendored not alone,
But many more who nameless sleep
Beneath the hasty funeral stone
Where Nature took them to her deep,
Kind bosom, from the Keeling strife
Of breast 10 breast and knife to knife
They fell beside Atlnntic's waves,
And never dreamed that sunset-scas,
Almost beneath their orient graves,
Would join their billowy hands with these
In ocean-greetings, round the strand
VI Freedoms ever-broadening land.
The stars which drop through tranquil air,
A fearless splendor TO our eyes,
Oer-brooded them with trembling care,
As, tentlessly, meath winter SKIES
They clutched their ever.ready arms,
And slept amid the wars alarms.
How oft those to-worn spirits, ere
They sank in slumber, gazed above,
Through eyes halfblinded by tear,
And longed TO mingle with tho love
OF those bright regions, where the fame
And rage Of battle never came!
The planet-brothers, as they drive
Through sullen clouds, with spears Of gold,
The glories of the dead revive,
Who conquered in the days of old
Stars, flowers, mountains, plain, and sea,
Their mourners and mementoes be.
God help us keep the sacred trust
Our slres bequeathed US with our BREATH
Crush treason in its native dust
And struggle, faithful unto DEATH
With fearless soul and treless hand,
For Liberty and Father-land
Perhaps our country's giories chime
The reapers Of the human race,
The sunset Of the orb OF Time,
Now sinking from its steller place
With vital splendor, doubly bright
IA ends its pilgrimage in night
Then let II be glorious one,
This declinaton Of world:
The fight Of being grandly won;
Life's wnr-worn flag triumphant furlcd
BY heroes worthy OF the heur
Inspired, sublime with virtues power