Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/447

 18t0-50.] D. BETHUNE DUFFIELD. 431 Oh, that the shadows round my life's decline, May linger long before the night shall come, And Heaven's mild glory down that valley shine, Through which my weary feet must lead me home. ANNIVERSARY ODE.* Come ye, whose feet old Erie kindly laves, And join to pour an anthem o'er her waves, This day to her broad breast she calls the free, And bids them welcome to her jubilee. Thou stately Queen of all the lordly lakes Down where Niagara's thundering chorus breaks. Snatch forth a strain of nature's lofty praise To swell the chant thy sister cities raise. Come, thou old Erie, worthy of thy name, Bearing the trophy of thy hero's fame, — The fragments of that torn and shattered wreck With battle's footprints still upon the deck ; And thou, too, ancient " City of the Straits," Bring forth the guns that once assailed thy gates. And thou fair Forest City, gliding from thy grove, Come like the swan and o'er the waters move. And coy Sandusky, nestled in thy bay, Where lovers dream the evening hours away. Come with Monroe from river Rasin's shore And proud Toledo, valiant as of yore ; Bay, on the forty-fifth Anniyersary of the Battle of Lake Erie, September tenth, 1858. Come, grave Maumee, for years fuU wide- ly known. By heroes, and a fever all thine own. Let all our cities in one common hymn Send Perry's praise around old Erie's brim. Perry the young. Perry the bold and brave. The Christian hero of our common wave ; Let all the bugles their best music pour, Let all the cannon in glad triumph roar. And let their echoes, leaping from each shore. Still chime his name, And lofty fame, Forever, and forever more ! New generations here this day we see With brilliant pomp and gay festivity, With lute and tabret and the vocal chime. That rings far down the avenues of time, With brazen trump and clanging drum and bell. In soul-refreshing strains again to tell How well. How bravely well, Great Perry stood When shot and shell Around him fell, And vexed and seethed old Erie's peaceful flood, And dyed her emerald waves with valor's precious blood. Then let us send the towering shaft on high, To court new blessings from each morning sky; To teach our rising youth on land and flood, That liberty is worthy of their blood ; And on its tablet write, in boldest line, Those words that round this lake should ever shine — That modest message of our hero's pen — Long may it live among our naval men. Long gleam from all our armed forts and towers — " We've met the enemy, and they are ours ! "
 * Extracts from an ode read at a celebration at Put-in-