Oh! from the deeds well done, the blood well shed
In a good cause springs up to crown the land
With ever-during verdure, memory fed,
Wherever freedom rears one fearless band,
The genius, which makes sacred time and place,
Shaping the grand memorials of a race!

The barren rock becomes a monument,
The sea-shore sands a shrine;
And each brave life, in desperate conflict spent,
Grows to a memory which prolongs a line!

Oh! barren isle--oh! fruitless shore,
Oh! realm devoid of beauty--how the light
From glory's sun streams down for evermore,
Hallowing your ancient barrenness with bright!

Brief dates, your lowly forts; but full of glory,
Worthy a life-long story;
Remembered, to be chronicled and read,
When all your gallant garrisons are dead;
And to be sung
While liberty and letters find a tongue!

Taught by the grandsires at the ingle-blaze,
Through the long winter night;
Pored over, memoried well, in winter days,
While youthful admiration, with delight,
Hangs, breathless, o'er the tale, with silent praise;
Seasoning delight with wonder, as he reads
Of stubborn conflict and audacious deeds;
Watching the endurance of the free and brave,
Through the protracted struggle and close fight,
Contending for the lands they may not save,
Against the felon, and innumerous foe;
Still struggling, though each rampart proves a grave.
For home, and all that's dear to man below!

Earth reels and ocean rocks at every blow;
But still undaunted, with a martyr's might,
They make for man a new ThermopylÆ;
And, perishing for freedom, still go free!
Let but each humble islet of our coast
Thus join the terrible issue to the last;
And never shall the invader make his boast
Of triumph, though with mightiest panoply
He seeks to rend and rive, to blight and blast!

Promise of Spring.

The sun-beguiling breeze,
From the soft Cuban seas,
With life-bestowing kiss wakes the pride of garden bowers;
And lo! our city elms,
Have plumed with buds their helms,
And, with tiny spears salute the coming on of flowers.

The promise of the Spring,
Is in every glancing wing
That tells its flight in song which shall long survive the flight;
And mocking Winter's glooms,
Skies, air and earth grow blooms,
With change as bless'd as ever came with passage of a night!

Ah! could our hearts but share
The promise rich and rare,
That welcomes life to rapture in each happy fond caress,
That makes each innocent thing
Put on its bloom and wing,
Singing for Spring to come to the realm she still would bless!

But, alas for us, no more
Shall the coming hour rescore
The glory, sweet and wonted, of the seasons to our souls;
Even as the Spring appears,
Her smiling makes our tears,
While with each bitter memory the torrent o'er us rolls.

Even as our zephyrs sing
That they bring us in the Spring,
Even as our bird grows musical in ecstasy of flight--
We see the serpent crawl,
With his slimy coat o'er all,
And blended with the song is the hissing of his blight.

We shudder at the blooms,
Which but serve to cover tombs--
At the very sweet of odors which blend venom with the breath;
Sad shapes look out from trees,
And in sky and earth and breeze,
We behold but the aspect of a Horror worse than Death!

South Carolinian.

Spring.