streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.

Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to the time when this declaration shall be made good. We may die; die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously, and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready, at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.

But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured that this declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return, they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.

Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I began, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence now, and INDEPENDENCE FOREVER!

LIBERTY AND UNION

DANIEL WEBSTER

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 lustre, 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 American heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!

bel lig'er ent, waging war. feud, a bitter quarrel; strife.

in ter rog'a tory, a formal question.

ROBIN HOOD

JOHN KEATS

No! those days are gone away,
And their hours are old and gray,
And their minutes buried all
Under the downtrodden pall
Of the leaves of many years;
Many times have Winter's shears,
Frozen North, and chilling East,
Sounded tempests to the feast
Of the forest's whispering fleeces
Since men knew nor rents nor leases.

No! the bugle sounds no more,
And the twanging bow no more;
Silent is the ivory shrill,

Past the heath and up the hill;
There is no mid-forest laugh,
Whose lone echo gives the half
To some wight amazed to hear
Jesting, deep in forest drear.

On the fairest time of June
You may go, with sun or moon,
Or the seven stars to light you,
Or the polar ray to right you;
But you never may behold
Little John, or Robin bold-
Never one, of all the clan,
Thrumming on an empty can
Some old hunting ditty, while
He doth his green way beguile

To fair hostess Merriment

Down beside the pasture Trent;
For he left the merry tale,
Messenger for spicy ale.

Gone the merry morris din;
Gone the song of Gamelyn;
Gone the tough-belted outlaw
Idling in the "grené shawe"
All are gone away and past;
And if Robin should be cast
Sudden from his turféd grave,
And if Marian should have
Once again her forest days,
She would weep, and he would craze;
He would swear, for all his oaks,
Fallen beneath the dockyard strokes,
Have rotted on the briny seas;
She would weep that her wild bees
Sang not to her-Strange! that honey
Can't be got without hard money!
So it is! yet let us sing
Honor to the old bow-string!
Honor to the bugle-horn!
Honor to the woods unshorn!
Honor to the Lincoln green!
Honor to the archer keen!
Honor to tight Little John,
And the horse he rode upon!
Honor to bold Robin Hood,
Sleeping in the underwood!
Honor to Maid Marian

And to all the Sherwood clan!

Though their days have hurried by,
Let us two a burden try!

mor'ris, the merry dance of Robin | Lin'coln

Hood's men.

bur'den, the refrain of a song.

Gam'e lyn, a daring king of outlaws and

the hero of several poems and tales. Mar'i an, Robin Hood's sweetheart.

green, Robin Hood's men dressed in green of the shade used by the dyers of the town of Lincoln. Sher'wood clan, the outlaw followers of Robin Hood in Sherwood forest in Yorkshire.

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821) was an English poet, noted for his keen appreciation of beauty and for his power of fancy.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

LORD BYRON

SHE walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!