While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured; bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, _What is all this worth?_ nor those other words of delusion and folly,—_Liberty first and Union afterwards_; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart,—_Liberty_ and _Union_, _now_ and _forever_, _one_ and _inseparable_! ADDRESS TO LIBERTY BY WILLIAM COWPER Oh, could I worship aught beneath the skies That earth hath seen, or fancy could devise, Thine altar, sacred Liberty, should stand, Built by no mercenary, vulgar hand, With fragrant turf, and flowers as wild and fair As ever dressed a bank, or scented summer air.