North American

TO THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY.
(From Tait's Magazine.)

Spirit! a cry from the earth
Has gone forth for thee!
The throbbings of woe, and the thrillings of mirth
Are forgotten for thee!
Tho' the world is teeming with beautiful things,
With the star that shines, and the bird that sings;
In all that wanders, or walks, or wings
Its way in the earth, or the sea,
Or the luminous folds of the silent sky,
There is beauty to feed the desire of the eye—
But we pant for thee!
Without thee, Spirit! we feel
Forgotten and lone.
Our hearts to thee are true as the steel
To the spirit that sways the stone.
Angel of Liberty! Best and fast,
Come down on the wings of the chartered blast—
The dreams of the dark and poisoned past
Will scatter and flee;
And the re-born bees of repentant men,
'Neath the breadth of thy pinions will gather again
New pulses from thee!
Spirit! walk over the west
To our island shore;
Where silence forever is cradled to rest,
In the ocean's roar!
Come, with thy train, o'er the hyaline sea,
From the homes and the hills of the brave and the free,
Where the demon was strangled that warred against thee!
Come in thy silver car!
Bring with thee peace, or our hearts may grieve,
More fast than the spirit that wanders at eve
In the western star!
Spirit! thy mighty voices
Remind us of thee—
My heart and the heart of the world rejoice
To behold their glee—
There is one, when the tongue of the cloud-belted thunder
Awakens the world with awe and with wonder—
There is one when the tempest is splitting asunder
The glass of the sea—
There is one of the forests and one of the fountains,
And one that I heard on my own native mountains,
And thought upon thee!
Some god in the world has stirred—
We receive the sign—
A sound, like the break of a trumpet, is heard—
Was it not thine?
On the mountains, a banner is blazing afar—
It glows like the light of a new-born star,
And summons the long-trampled nations to war
For the rights of the free.
Come—for too long has the world been curst—
With the draught of the desert—we pant and we thirst.
Great Spirit! for thee.

S. T. C. D.