THE FOURTH OF JULY

DAY of glory! Welcome day!
Freedom's banners greet thy ray;
See! how cheerfully they play

With thy morning breeze,

On the rocks where pilgrims kneeled,
On the heights where squadrons wheeled,
When a tyrant's thunder pealed

O'er the trembling seas.

God of armies! did thy stars
On their courses smite his cars;
Blast his arm, and wrest his bars

From the heaving tide?
On our standard, lo! they burn,
And, when days like this return,
Sparkle o'er the soldier's urn

Who for freedom died.

God of peace! whose spirit fills
All the echoes of our hills,
All the murmur of our rills,

Now the storm is o'er,

O let freemen be our sons,
And let future Washingtons
Rise, to lead their valiant ones

Till there's war no more!
JOHN PIERPONT.

News of its adoption was received throughout the country with the greatest rejoicing. On the 9th of July it was ratified by New York, and the soldiers there celebrated the occasion by throwing down the leaden statue of George III on the Bowling Green, and casting it into bullets. Everywhere there were bonfires, torchlight processions, and ratification meetings.

INDEPENDENCE DAY

SQUEAK the fife, and beat the drum,
Independence day is come!
Let the roasting pig be bled,
Quick twist off the cockerel's head,
Quickly rub the pewter platter,
Heap the nutcakes, fried in butter.
Set the cups and beaker glass,
The pumpkin and the apple sauce;
Send the keg to shop for brandy;
Maple sugar we have handy.
Independent, staggering Dick,
A noggin mix of swingeing thick;
Sal, put on your russet skirt,
Jotham, get your boughten shirt,

To-day we dance to tiddle diddle.
- Here comes Sambo with his fiddle;
Sambo, take a dram of whiskey,
And play up Yankee Doodle frisky.
Moll, come leave your witched tricks,
And let us have a reel of six.
Father and mother shall make two;
Sal, Moll, and I stand all a-row;
Sambo, play and dance with quality;
This is the day of blest equality.
Father and mother are but men,
And Sambo - is a citizen.
Come foot it, Sal-Moll, figure in,
And mother, you dance up to him;
Now saw as fast as e'er you can do,
And father, you cross o'er to Sambo.

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Thus we dance, and thus we play, On glorious independence day. Rub more rosin on your bow, And let us have another go. Zounds! as sure as eggs and bacon, Here's ensign Sneak, and Uncle Deacon, Aunt Thiah, and their Bets behind her, On blundering mare, than beetle blinder. And there's the 'Squire too, with his ladySal, hold the beast, I'll take the baby, Moll, bring the 'Squire our great armchair; Good folks, we're glad to see you here. Jotham, get the great case bottle, Your teeth can pull its corn-cob stopple. Ensign, Deacon, never mind; 'Squire, drink until you're blind. Come, here's the French, the Guillotine, And here is good 'Squire Gallatin, And here's each noisy Jacobin. Here's friend Madison so hearty, And here's confusion to the treaty. Come, one more swig to Southern Demos Who represent our brother negroes. Thus we drink and dance away, This glorious INDEPENDENCE DAY!

ROYALL TYLER.

ON INDEPENDENCE

[August 17, 1776]

COME all you brave soldiers, both valiant and free,

It's for Independence we all now agree; Let us gird on our swords and prepare to defend

Our liberty, property, ourselves and our friends.

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Enlarged as thine empire, and just as thy

cause;

On Freedom's broad basis, that empire shall rise,

Extend with the main, and dissolve with the skies.

Fair science her gates to thy sons shall unbar, And the east see the morn hide the beams of her star.

New bards, and new sages, unrivalled shall

soar

To fame unextinguished, when time is no

more;

To thee, the last refuge of virtue designed, Shall fly from all nations the best of mankind;

Here, grateful to heaven, with transport shall bring

Their incense, more fragrant than odors of spring,

Nor less shall thy fair ones to glory ascend, And genius and beauty in harmony blend; The graces of form shall awake pure desire, And the charms of the soul ever cherish the fire; Their sweetness unmingled, their manners refined,

And virtue's bright image, instamped on the mind,

With peace and soft rapture shall teach life to glow.

And light up a smile in the aspect of woe.

Thy fleets to all regions thy power shall display, The nations admire and the ocean obey; Each shore to thy glory its tribute unfold, And the east and the south yield their spices and gold.

As the day-spring unbounded, thy splendor shall flow,

And earth's little kingdoms before thee shall bow:

While the ensigns of union, in triumph unfurled, Hush the tumult of war and give peace to the world.

Thus, as down a lone valley, with cedars o'erspread,

From war's dread confusion I pensively strayed,

The gloom from the face of fair heaven retired; The winds ceased to murmur; the thunders expired;

Perfumes as of Eden flowed sweetly along, And a voice as of angels, enchantingly sung: "Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, The queen of the world, and the child of the skies." TIMOTHY DWight.

"T was the proud Sir Peter Parker who saw with a wild amaze

This hero spring from the fortress height 'mid the hail and the fiery haze; Under the wall he strode, each step with the deadliest danger fraught,

And up from the sand with a triumph hand the splintered staff he caught.

Then, still unscathed by the iron rain, he clambered the parapet,

And 'mid the burst of his comrades' cheers the flag on the bastion set.

'T was the proud Sir Peter Parker who slunk through the night to sea,

With his shattered ships-of-line a-port and his ships-of-line a-lee;

Above there was wreck, and below was wreck, and the sense of loss and woe, For the sneered-at rebel sires and sons had proved them a direful foe;

But War's dark blight on the land lay light, and they hailed with a joyful smile The stars of victory burning bright over Sullivan's sandy isle.

CLINTON SCOLLARD.

The British fleet remained in the neighborhood for three weeks to refit and then sailed away to New York to cooperate with Howe. Charleston was saved and for two years the Southern States were free from the invader.

A NEW WAR SONG BY SIR PETER PARKER

My lords, with your leave,
An account I will give,

Which deserves to be written in metre;
How the rebels and I
Have been pretty nigh,

Faith, 't was almost too nigh for Sir Peter!

The victory at Charleston was the last success which American arms were to achieve for many months. The British had decided to capture and hold the line of the Hudson in order to cut the colonies in two. Howe, with a trained army of twenty-five thousand men, prepared to attack New York, while, to oppose him, Washington had only eighteen thousand undisciplined levies. Half this force was concentrated at Brooklyn Heights, which was strongly fortified, and here, on August 27, 1776, Howe delivered his attack. Overwhelming superiority of numbers enabled the British to press back their opponents to their works on the heights. Not daring to storm, the British prepared to lay siege to this position. Washington had no way to withstand a siege, which must have resulted in the loss of his whole army, and after nightfall of August 29, he succeeded in ferrying the entire force, with their cannon, arms, ammunition, horses, and larder, over to the New York side.