The Republican journal., 1913-07-17

My Montville, visions of hundred years
Hallow my smiles and consecrate my tears;
The pride your mountains speak unto the sea.
Witness, o throng, this annivers airy!
IT'S not their wooded slopes, nor orchards fair,
Nor fields that sickles wait, nor gamers there,
Nor lakes. nor streams, nor marts nor busy
mills
Nor rose EMPOWERED home, that plenty fills;
tbs men both tall and strong in heart and hope,
And women true and tried with them to COY e
For civic veal: this do your mountains proud,
With heads erect, boast to the sea and cloud
Laws, marts and ethics aggrandize his brain;
OF signs in earth and tokens in the sky
Science has taught him her utility;
And he who fells the oak has prophet gift,
And destiny divines in grain and rift.
Some tell us gold and gems are in the West,
Beneath the Southern Cross ife's fruits are
blest,
Perpetual sunshine adds to length of days,
And the dream islands lie in tropic bays;
But when the wanderer returns at last,
And counts its treasure lost and sorrow past,
Joy crowns the hills that wall our temper ed
cline,
Brief days and star-lit nights he counts sub
lime,
Whether the leaf is green, or winter white.
Flocks in the pasture feed. or birds take flight;
The fields, the herds, the woods the birds. the
The mount, the river vending to the sea-
All claim the heart weary of alien skies
Where first he saw the light of Paradise.
Beside the river there and in the dale
The soldier sleeps, who heard the rafting
hail
Of Wars wild storms, but faltered not to go
And save his land and kin from blight and woe;
The child with golden tress, the mother young,
Who left the world, the cradle song unsung;
The youth, the old, the good, the reverend
head
Are treasure trove-we count them not as
dead:
Hearts of our kind within this zone of fear.
Seeing of life the shadowy marge appear,
They took in trust the compass and the chart,
To find of being here the counterpart.
The school. the spring, where at the bubbing
brink
True aspirations rise, but never sink
To drown the thoughts of childhoods radiant
days.
AS in the pool we dip the fading bays;
Twin founts they of virtue and of light
Before W nose rising floods departs the night.
Youth. drinking there, shall gain an Atlas
strength,
And broad shoulders bear the world at
length;
And drinking, some shall stay and others go.
But on the lips of all the draught shall show
What is the gift that mas es for highest good,
The gift of God and human brotherhood
Return bearing your shields, or on them dead,
The battle fought, the Spartan mothers said.
Such valor, sons of light. knew ancient Greece.
Stern her age, but yours flutes sweet in
peace
Heed We the stern command never the less;
Ye must be tried in fires of righteousness.
Ours is the age that burns ovens burn,
And proud and wicked hearts to ashes turn
AS stubble: so the Hebrew prophet told
The dross shall disappear, leaving the gold
If for that heated fray one takes the field,
True pride shall hail him back bearing his
shield.
Or on it dead, since for the right he fought
And none shall speak his life as come to naught,
But all about him shall his loss benloan,
And they who knew him say in undertone:
"How is the strong staff broken and the rod
Of beauty" as they turn reluctant sod.
'Ts better thus to go than wistfui stay,
And guard the paltry hoard for life's ill day.
Heaven keeps the priceless treasure time has
lost.
Counts him who fights for right more than
host.
Vaor like that gladdens the century past:
Honor thus brighJ awaits the goal at last.
He who shall sing the next centennial song
Will own this truth fain would watt along.
FRANKLIN FOLSOM PHILLIPS.