By Mrs. M. J. Preston.
Float aloft, thou stainless banner!
Azure cross and field of light;
Be thy brilliant stars the symbol
Of the pure and true and right.
Shelter freedom's holy cause--
Liberty and sacred laws;
Guard the youngest of the nations--
Keep her virgin honor bright.
From Virginia's storied border,
Down to Tampa's furthest shore--
From the blue Atlantic's clashings
To the Rio Grande's roar--
Over many a crimson plain,
Where our martyred ones lie slain--
Fling abroad thy blessed shelter,
Stream and mount and valley o'er.
In thy cross of heavenly azure
Has our faith its emblem high;
In thy field of white, the hallow'd
Truth for which we'll dare and die;
In thy red, the patriot blood--
Ah! the consecrated flood.
Lift thyself, resistless banner!
Ever fill our Southern sky!
Flash with living, lightning motion
In the sight of all the brave!
Tell the price at which we purchased
Room and right for thee to wave
Freely in our God's free air,
Pure and proud and stainless fair,
Banner of the youngest nation--
Banner we would die to save!
Strike Thou for us! King of armies!
Grant us room in Thy broad world!
Loosen all the despot's fetters,
Back be all his legions hurled!
Give us peace and liberty,
Let the land we love be free--
Then, oh! bright and stainless banner!
Never shall thy folds be furled!
Sonnet--Moral of Party
Charleston Mercury.
The moral of a party--if it be
That healthy States need parties, lies in this,
That we consider well what race it is,
And what the germ that first has made it free.
That germ must constitute the living tie
That binds its generations to the end,
Change measures if it need, or policy,
But neither break the principle, nor bend.
Each race hath its own nature--fixed, defined,
By Heaven, and if its principle be won,
Kept changeless as the progress of the sun,
It mocks at storm and rage, at sea and wind,
And grows to consummation, as the tree,
Matured, that ever grew in culture free.