LONGFELLOW.
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge, and what a heat,
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope.
III.
THE TRUE HERO.
HORACE BUSHNELL.
The true hero is the great, wise man of duty,—he whose soul is armed by truth and supported by the smile of God,—he who meets life's perils with a cautious but tranquil spirit, gathers strength by facing its storms, and dies, if he is called to die, as a Christian victor at the post of duty. And, if we must have heroes, and wars wherein to make them, there is none so brilliant as a war with wrong,—no hero so fit to be sung as he who hath gained the bloodless victory of truth and mercy.
IV.
HEART ESSENTIAL TO GENIUS.
W.G. SIMMS.
We are not always equal to our fate,
Nor true to our conditions. Doubt and fear
Beset the bravest, in their high career,
At moments when the soul, no more elate
With expectation, sinks beneath the time.
The masters have their weakness. "I would climb,"
Said Raleigh, gazing on the highest hill,—
"But that I tremble with the fear to fall."
Apt was the answer of the high-souled queen:
"If thy heart fail thee, never climb at all!"
The heart! if that be sound, confirms the rest,
Crowns genius with his lion will and mien,
And, from the conscious virtue in the breast,
To trembling nature gives both strength and will.