Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/186

182 Hill Monument, was on the 23d of July, 1842 and announced to the people by the voice of cannon. On the 17th of June of the following year, the sixty-seventh anniversary of the battle, was another scene of deep national interest. Again, the powerful voice of Webster was heard addressing and electrifying an immense multitude gathered from every part of the Union. How fraught with change had been these intervening years. The throwing up of earth with the spade, on the same hill, by the fathers, would no longer be counted rebellion. Twenty millions of people now overspread a free and prosperous country, for which they then periled their lives, and which numbers among her countless blessings that of peace with the realm which she was once called to meet in fields of blood.

Some of the veterans of the battles of the revolution were at the celebration of the completion of the Monument on Bunker Hill, but few in number, and wasted in strength. Yet the patriot flame had not gone out in their bosoms, and their fervent prayers were still for the welfare of their beloved Country.

Break forth, break forth, in raptured song, And bid it pour thy vales along, Thou pilgrim-planted land! From fields where ripening harvests bend, From marts where thronging thousands tend, Arouse thy tuneful band.