Verses from the Oldest Poolio | Page 9

them ocean curled,
Safe by his own pale bird;
The
gnashing billows heaved and fell;
Wild shrieked the midnight gale;

Far, far beneath the morning swell
Were pennon, spar, and sail.
The land of Freedom! Sea and shore
Are guarded now, as when
Her
ebbing waves to victory bore
Fair barks and gallant men;
Oh, many
a ship of prouder name
May wave her starry fold,
Nor trail, with
deeper light of fame,
The paths they swept of old!
"QUI VIVE?"

"Qui vive?" The sentry's musket rings,
The channelled bayonet
gleams;
High o'er him, like a raven's wings
The broad tricolored
banner flings
Its shadow, rustling as it swings
Pale in the moonlight
beams;
Pass on! while steel-clad sentries keep
Their vigil o'er the
monarch's sleep,
Thy bare, unguarded breast
Asks not the unbroken,
bristling zone
That girds yon sceptred trembler's throne;--
Pass on,
and take thy rest!
"Qui vive?" How oft the midnight air
That startling cry has borne!

How oft the evening breeze has fanned
The banner of this haughty
land,
O'er mountain snow and desert sand,
Ere yet its folds were
torn!
Through Jena's carnage flying red,
Or tossing o'er Marengo's
dead,
Or curling on the towers
Where Austria's eagle quivers yet,

And suns the ruffled plumage, wet
With battle's crimson showers!
"Qui vive?" And is the sentry's cry,--
The sleepless soldier's hand,--

Are these--the painted folds that fly
And lift their emblems, printed
high
On morning mist and sunset sky--
The guardians of a land?

No! If the patriot's pulses sleep,
How vain the watch that hirelings
keep,
The idle flag that waves,
When Conquest, with his iron heel,

Treads down the standards and the steel
That belt the soil of
slaves!
NOTES.
Page 6. "They're as safe as Dan'l Malcolm."
The following epitaph is
still to be read on a tall grave-stone standing as yet undisturbed among
the transplanted monuments of the dead in Copp's Hill Burial-Ground,
one of the three city cemeteries which have been desecrated and ruined
within my own remembrance :--
"Here lies buried in a
Stone Grave 10 feet deep,
Cap' DANIEL MALCOLM Merch'
Who departed this Life
October 23d, 1769,

Aged 44 years,
a true son of Liberty,
a Friend to the Publick,
an Enemy to oppression,
and one of the foremost
in opposing the Revenue Acts
on America."
Page 62. This broad-browed youth.
Benjamin Robbins Curtis.
Page 62. The stripling smooth of face and slight.
George Tyler
Bigelow.
0. END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O.
W. HOLMES, V12 ***
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