Columbia, young, a giant baby born, Aimed at a manhood ere the child had been, And slipping downward in a strut forlorn, Learns, to its sorrow, what 'tis good to know, That _babes who walk too soon, too soon begin To walk_ in this dark vale of life below. When first the State of Charleston did secede, And Morrill's tariff was declared repealed, The soul of Freedom everywhere did bleed For that which, having seen, it sadly saw; So true it is, _death-wounds are never healed_, And law defied is not unquestioned law. The mother-poet, England, sadly viewed The strife unnatural across the wave, And with maternal tenderness renewed Her sweet assurances of neutral love; _A mother's love may not its offspring save; But mother's love is still a mother's love._ Learn thou, Columbia, in thine agony, That England loves thee, with a love as deep As my "Proverbial Philosophy" Has won for me from her approving breast; _The love that never slumbers cannot sleep_, And all for highest good is for the best. Thy Freedom fattens on the work of slaves, Her Grace of Sutherland informeth me; And all thy South Amboy is full of graves, Where tortured bondmen snatch a dread repose; Learn, then, the _race enslaved is never free_, And in thy woes incurred, behold thy woes. Thy pride is humbled, humbled is thy pride, And now misfortunes come upon thee, thick With dark reproaches for the right defied, And cloud thy banner in a dim eclipse; _Sic transit gloria gloria transic sic_, The mouth that speaketh useth its own lips. Thus speeds the world, and thus our planet speeds; What is, must be; and what can't be, is not; Our acts unwise are not our wisest deeds, And what we do is what ourselves have done; _Mistakes remembered are not faults forgot_, And we must wait for day to see the sun. I looked up at Smith-Brown, my boy, and says I: "What does he mean by the 'State of Charleston,' my fat friend?" "Why," says he, "that's a poetic license, or American geography diluted by the Atlantic. And here we have something by the gifted hauthor of 'Locksley Hall,' which it is somewhat in that vein: AMERICA. BY ALFRED TEN----N. Westward, westward flies the eagle, westward with the setting sun, To an eyrie growing golden in a morning just begun; Where the world is new in promise of a virgin nation's love. And the grand results of ages germs of nobler ages prove; Where a prophecy of greatness runs through all the soul of youth, And the miracle of Freedom blesses in a living truth; Where the centuries unnumbered narrow to a single night, And their trophies are but planets wheeling round a central light.