Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/324

 308 GEORGE W. CUTTER, [1840-50. Dissolve the Union ! God of Heaven ! We know too well how much it cost : A million bosoms shall be riven Before one golden link is lost. Nay, spread aloft our banner folds High as the heavens they resemble, That every race this planet holds Beneath their shadow may assemble, And with the rainbow's dazzling pride Or clouds that burn along the skies, Inscribed upon its margin wide, Hope, Freedom, Union, Compromise. E PLURIBUS UNUM. Tho' many and bright are the stars that appeal' In that flag, by our country unfurl'd ; And the stripes that are swelling in majesty there Like a rainbow adorning the world ; Their light is unsullied, as those in the sky, By a deed that our fathers have done ; And they're leagued in as true and as holy a tie, In their motto of " Many in one." From the hour when those patriots fear- lessly flung That banner of starlight abroad. Ever true to themselves, to that motto they clung As they clung to the promise of God : By the bayonet traced at the midnight of war, On the fields where our glory was won, O perish the heart or the hand that would mar Our motto of " Many in one." Mid the smoke of the contest — the can- non's deep roar How oft it has gathered renown ; While those stars were reflected in rivers of gore. When the Cross and the Lion went down ; And tho' few were the lights in the gloom of that hour, Yet the hearts that were striking below Had God for their bulwark, and truth for their power, And they stopp'd not to number the foe. From where our Green Mountain tops blend with the sky. And the giant St. Lawrence is rolled, To the waves where the bahny Hesperides lie. Like the dream of some prophet of old, They conquer'd ; and dying, bequeath'd to our care. Not this boundless dominion alone, But that banner where loveliness hallows the air, And their motto of "Many in one." We are "Many in one" while there glit- ters a star In the blue of the heavens above ; And tyrants shall quail mid their dungeons afar. When they gaze on that motto of love. It shall gleam o'er the sea, mid the bolts of the storm — Over tempest and battle and wreck — And flame where our guns with their thun- der grow warm, 'Neath the blood on the shppery deck. The oppress'd of the earth to that stand- ard shall fly. Wherever its folds shall be spread ; And the exile shall feel 'tis his own native sky Where its stars shall float over his head ; And those stars shall increase till the full- ness of time Its milhons of cycles has run — Till the world shall have welcomed its mis- sion sublime. And the nations of earth shall be one. 1