South Carolina was the first place in the United States in which they both landed, and at no very distant spots the one near Georgetown, and the other at Charlestown. Lafayette, a Frenchman, came by the way of France. Both have most materially contributed to the independence of the New World—the one in North, the other in South America; and what is most singular, at the very period in which the one is receiving the homage of national gratitude in the former—the other has succeeded in his efforts for the cause of freedom in the latter place.
Among the persons who received Gen. Lafayette at Columbia, was Judge Waites, who is the only survivor of the party that first received him at landing on the soil of South Carolina, at Gen. Huger's in Georgetown.
[YES. TOMORROW'S FLAG DAY.]
(Tomorrow, June 14, is Flag Day in the United States.)
When Freedom, from her mountain height,
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with the gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streaklings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle to bear down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.
Majestic monarch of the cloud,
Who rear'st aloft thy regal form
To hear the tempest trumpings loud
And see the lightning lances driven,
When strive the warriors of the storm
And rolls the thunder drum of heaven;
Child of the sun, to thee 'tis given
To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of Victory.
Flag of the brave, thy folds shall fly,
The sigh of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on.
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn,
And as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance;
And when the cannon mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall,
And cowering foes shall shrink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.
Flag of the seas, on oceans wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering in the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.