PROGRAMME NO. 2, FOR FOURTH OF JULY.
MUSIC—By Band or Orchestra.
SINGING—TUNE: America.
God bless our native land!
Firm may she ever stand
Through storm and night;
When the wild tempests rave,
Ruler of winds and wave!
Do thou our country save
By thy great might.
For her our prayers shall rise
To God above the skies,
On him we wait;
Thou who art ever nigh,
Guardian with watchful eye!
To thee alone we cry,
God save the State.
Our fathers’ God! to thee,
Author of liberty,
To thee we sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom’s holy light;
Protect us by thy might,
Great God, our King!
READING—Declaration of Independence.
RECITATION—Our Natal Day.
Oh, the Fourth of July!
When fire-crackers fly,
And urchins in petticoats tyrants defy!
When all the still air
Creeps away in despair,
And clamor is king, be the day dark or fair!
When freedom’s red flowers
Fall in star-spangled showers,
And liberty capers for twenty-four hours.
When the morn’s ushered in
By a sleep-crushing din,
That tempts us to use philological sin;
When the forenoon advances
With large circumstances,
Subjecting our lives to debatable chances;
When the soldiers of peace
Their attractions increase,
By marching, protected with clubs of police;
When the little toy gun
Has its share of the fun,
By teaching short-hand to the favorite son.
Oh, the Fourth of July!
When grand souls hover nigh!
When Washington bends from the honest blue sky!
When Jefferson stands—
Famous scribe of all lands—
The charter of heaven in his glorified hands!
When his comrade—strong, high,
John Adams—comes nigh,
(For both went to their rest the same Fourth of July!)
When Franklin—grand, droll—
That could lightnings control,
Comes here with his sturdy, progressive old soul;
When freedom’s strong staff—
Hancock—with a laugh,
Writes in memory’s album his huge autograph!
But let thought have its way,
And give memory sway;
Do we think of the cost of this glorified day?
While the harvest-field waves,
Do we think of those braves
In the farms thickly planted with thousands of graves?
How the great flag up there,
Clean and pure as the air,
Has been drabbled with blood-drops, and trailed in despair?
Do we know what a land
God hath placed in our hand,
To be made into star-gems, or crushed into sand?
Let us feel that our race,
Doomed to no second place,
Must glitter with triumph, or die in disgrace!
That millions unborn,
At night, noon, and morn,
Will thank us with blessings, or curse us with scorn,
For raising more high
Freedom’s flag to the sky,
Or losing forever the Fourth of July!
Will Carleton.
SINGING—Tune: “Hold the Fort.”
Oh, behold in all its beauty,
Freedom’s flag unfurled!
Glorious flag—to us the fairest
In the wide, wide world.
CHORUS.
Proudly float, O flag of Freedom,
Fair Columbia’s pride!
For thy stars and stripes of beauty,
Many a hero died.
Great the price of Freedom’s purchase—
’Twas the price of life;
Oh, the pain and loss and sorrow
Ere the end of strife.
Ever mindful of the struggle,
Let us all be true
To the colors of our nation—
Red, and white and blue.
RECITATION—The Banner of the Sea.
By wind and wave the sailor brave has fared
To shores of every sea;
But never yet have seamen met or dared
Grim death for victory
In braver mood than they who died
On drifting decks, in Apia’s tide,
While cheering every sailor’s pride,
The banner of the free!
Columbia’s men were they who then went down,
Not knights nor kings of old,
But brighter far their laurels are than crown
Or coronet of gold;
Our sailor true, of any crew,
Would give the last long breath he drew
To cheer the old red, white and blue,
The banner of the bold!
With hearts of oak, through storm and smoke and flame,
Columbia’s seamen long
Have bravely fought and nobly wrought, that shame
Might never dull their song;
They sing the country of the free,
The glory of the rolling sea,
The starry flag of liberty,
The banner of the strong!
We ask but this, and not amiss the claim,
A fleet to ride the wave,
A navy great to crown the State with fame,
Though foes or tempests rave;
Then, as our fathers did of yore,
We’ll sail our ships to every shore,
On every ocean wind will soar
The banner of the brave!
Oh! this we claim, that never shame may ride
On any wave with thee,
Thou Ship of State, whose timbers great abide
The home of liberty!
For, so, our gallant Yankee tars,
Of daring deeds and honored scars,
Will make the banner of the stars
The banner of the sea.
Homer Green.
MUSIC—Cornet Solo.
ORATION—What America has Done for the World.
What has this nation done to repay the world for the benefits we have received from others? We have been repeatedly told, and sometimes, too, in a tone of affected impartiality, that the highest praise which can fairly be given to the American mind, is that of possessing an enlightened selfishness; that if the philosophy and talents of this country, with all their effects, were forever swept into oblivion, the loss would be felt only by ourselves; and that if to the accuracy of this general charge, the labors of Franklin present an illustrious, it is still but a solitary, exception.
The answer may be given, confidently and triumphantly. Without abandoning the fame of our eminent men, whom Europe has been slow and reluctant to honor, we would reply, that the intellectual power of this people has exerted itself in conformity to the general system of our institutions and manners; and therefore, that, for the proof of its existence and the measure of its force, we must look not so much to the works of prominent individuals, as to the great aggregate results; and if Europe has hitherto been wilfully blind to the value of our example and the exploits of our sagacity, courage, invention, and freedom, the blame must rest with her, and not with America.
Is it nothing for the universal good of mankind to have carried into successful operation a system of self-government, uniting personal liberty, freedom of opinion, and equality of rights, with national power and dignity; such as had before existed only in the Utopian dreams of philosophers? Is it nothing, in moral science, to have anticipated in sober reality, numerous plans of reform in civil and criminal jurisprudence, which are, but now, received as plausible theories by the politicians and economists of Europe? Is it nothing to have been able to call forth on every emergency, either in war or peace, a body of talented patriots always equal to the difficulty?
Is it nothing to have, in less than a half-century, exceedingly improved the sciences of political economy, of law, and of medicine, with all their auxiliary branches; to have enriched human knowledge by the accumulation of a great mass of useful facts and observations, and to have augmented the power and the comforts of civilized man, by miracles of mechanical invention? Is it nothing to have given the world examples of disinterested patriotism, of political wisdom, of public virtue; of learning, eloquence, and valor, never exerted save for some praiseworthy end? It is sufficient to have briefly suggested these considerations; every mind would anticipate me in filling up the details.
No—Land of Liberty! thy children have no cause to blush for thee. What though the arts have reared few monuments among us, and scarce a trace of the muse’s footstep is found in the paths of our forests, or along the banks of our rivers; yet our soil has been consecrated by the blood of heroes, and by great and holy deeds of peace. Its wide extent has become one vast temple and hallowed asylum, sanctified by the prayers and blessings of the persecuted of every sect, and the wretched of all nations.
Land of Refuge—Land of Benedictions! Those prayers still arise, and they still are heard: “May peace be within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces!” “May there be no decay, no leading into captivity, and no complaining in thy streets!” “May truth flourish out of the earth, and righteousness look down from Heaven!”
Gulian C. Verplanck.
MARCH—Daughters of the Revolution.
(Twelve or more little girls, dressed in Continental costume and carrying flags. They should be drilled to perform a march.)
RECITATION—Stand up for Liberty.
Ye sons of Columbia, who bravely have fought
For those rights which unstained from your sires had descended.
May you long taste the blessings your valor has brought,
And your sons reap the soil which your fathers defended.
Let our patriots destroy anarch’s pestilent worm,
Lest our liberty’s growth should be checked by corrosion;
Then let clouds thicken round us: we heed not the storm;
Our realm feels no shock but the earth’s own explosion.
Foes assail us in vain,
Though their fleets bridge the main;
For our altars and laws with our lives we’ll maintain;
For ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls its waves.
Should the tempest of war overshadow our land,
Its bolts could ne’er rend freedom’s temple asunder;
For, unmoved, at its portal would Washington stand,
And repulse, with his breast, the assaults of the thunder!
His sword from the sleep
Of its scabbard would leap,
And conduct, with its point, every flash to the deep!
For ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls its waves.
Let fame to the world sound America’s voice;
No intrigues can her sons from their government sever;
Her pride are her statesmen—their laws are her choice,
And shall flourish till liberty slumbers forever.
Then unite heart and hand,
Like Leonidas’ band,
And swear to the God of the ocean and land
That ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls its waves.
Robert Treat Paine, Jr.
MUSIC—By Band or Orchestra.
RECITATION—Off with Your Hat as the Flag Goes By.
Off with your hat as the flag goes by!
And let the heart have its say;
You’re man enough for a tear in your eye
That you will not wipe away.
You’re man enough for a thrill that goes
To your very finger tips—
Ay! The lump just then in your throat that rose
Spoke more than your parted lips.
Lift up the boy on your shoulder high,
And show him the faded shred—
Those stripes would be red as the sunset sky
If death could have dyed them red.
The man that bore it, with death has lain
These thirty years or more—
He died that the work should not be vain
Of the men who bore it before.
The man that bears it is bent and old,
And ragged his beard and gray;
But see his proud form grow young and bold,
At the tune that he hears them play.
The old tune thunders through all the air,
And strikes right into the heart;
If it ever calls for you, boy, be there!
Be there and ready to start!
Off with your hat as the flag goes by!
Uncover the youngster’s head!
Teach him to hold it holy and high,
For the sake of its sacred dead.
H. C. Bunner.
RECITATION—The Young American.
Scion of a mighty stock!
Hands of iron—hearts of oak—
Follow with unflinching tread
Where the noble fathers led.
Craft and subtle treachery,
Gallant youth! are not for thee;
Follow thou in word and deeds
Where the God within thee leads!
Honesty with steady eye,
Truth and pure simplicity,
Love that gently winneth hearts—
These shall be thy only arts:
Prudent in the council train,
Dauntless on the battle-plain,
Ready at the country’s need
For her glorious cause to bleed!
Where the dews of night distill
Upon Vernon’s holy hill;
Where above it, gleaming far,
Freedom lights her guiding star:
Thither turn the steady eye,
Flashing with a purpose high;
Thither, with devotion meet,
Often turn the pilgrim feet!
Let the noble motto be,
God—the country—liberty!
Planted on religion’s rock,
Thou shalt stand in every shock.
TABLEAU—Surrender of Cornwallis.
(American and British soldiers in the background. Washington in front and Cornwallis handing him his sword.)
MUSIC—By Band or Orchestra.
