Our band is few, but true and tried Our leader frank and bold: The British soldier trembles When Marion's name is told. Our fortress is the good greenwood, Our tent the cypress-tree; We know the forest round us, As seamen know the sea. We know its walls of thorny vines, Its glades of reedy grass; Its safe and silent islands Within the dark morass. Well knows the fair and friendly moon The band that Marion leads,-- The glitter of their rifles, The scampering of their steeds. 'Tis life to guide the fiery barb Across the moonlit plain; 'Tis life to feel the night wind That lifts his tossing mane. A moment in the British camp,-- A moment,--and away Back to the pathless forest Before the peep of day. Grave men there are by broad Santee, Grave men with hoary hairs; Their hearts are all with Marion, For Marion are their prayers. And lovely ladies greet our band With kindliest welcoming, With smiles like those of summer, And tears like those of spring. For them we wear these trusty arms, And lay them down no more Till we have driven the Briton Forever from our shore. THE FATE OF THE PHILADELPHIA. It was a mild evening on the Mediterranean, the wind light, the sea smooth, the temperature--though the season was that of midwinter--summer-like in its geniality. Into the harbor of Tripoli slowly glided a small, two-masted vessel, all her sails set and moderately well filled by the wind, yet moving with the tardiness of a very slow sailer. A broad bay lay before her, its surface silvered by the young moon whose crescent glowed in the western sky. Far inward could be dimly seen the masts and hull of a large vessel, its furled sails white in the moonlight. Beyond it were visible distant lights, and a white lustre as of minaret tops touched by the moonbeams. These were the lights and spires of Tripoli, a Moorish town then best known as a haunt and stronghold of the pirates of the Mediterranean. All was silence, all seemingly peace. The vessel--the ketch, to give it its nautical name--moved onward with what seemed exasperating slowness, scarcely ruffling the polished waters of the bay. The hours passed on. The miles lagged tardily behind. The wind fell. The time crept towards midnight. The only life visible in the wide landscape was that of the gliding ketch. But any one who could have gained a bird's-eye view of the vessel would have seen sufficient to excite his distrust of that innocent-seeming craft. From the water-side only ten or twelve men could be seen, but on looking downward the decks would have been perceived to be crowded with men, lying down so as to be hidden behind the bulwarks and other objects upon the deck, and so thick that the sailors who were working the vessel had barely room to move.