Hark! with deep, clear intonation,
Breaks his young voice on the air:

Hushed the people's swelling murmur,
Whilst the boy cries joyously:
"Ring!" he shouts, "Ring! grandpapa,
Ring! oh, ring for liberty!
Quickly, at the given signal

The old bellman lifts his hand,
Forth he sends the good news, making
Iron music through the land.

How they shouted! What rejoicing!
How the old bell shook the air,
Till the clang of freedom ruffled
The calmly gliding Delaware!
How the bonfires and the torches
Lighted up the night's repose,

And from the flames, like fabled Phoenix,
Our glorious liberty arose!

That old State-House bell is silent,

Hushed is now its clamorous tongue;

But the spirit it awakened

Still is living,-ever young;

And when we greet the smiling sunlight
On the fourth of each July,

We will ne'er forget the bellman
Who, betwixt the earth and sky,
Rung out, loudly, “Independence;"
Which, please God, shall never die!

Part Third.

Each of the Four Numbers of "100 Choice Selections" contained in this volume is paged separately, and the Index is made to correspond therewith. See EXPLANATION on Arst page of Contents.

The entire book contains nearly

1000 pages.

100

CHOICE SELECTIONS.

No. 3.

E PLURIBUS UNUM.-GEORGE W. CUTTER.
Though many and bright are the stars that appear
In that flag by our country unfurled,

And the stripes that are swelling in majesty there,
Like a rainbow adorning the world,—

Their light is unsullied as those in the sky,
By a deed that our fathers have done,

And they're linked in as true and as holy a tie,
In their motto of " Many in One."

From the hour when those patriots fearlessly flung
That banner of starlight abroad,

Ever true to themselves, to that motto they clung
As they clung to the promise of God.

By the bayonet traced at the midnight of war,

On the fields where our glory was won

Oh! perish the heart or the hand that would mar

Our motto of " Many in One."

'Mid the smoke of the conflict, the cannon's deep roar,

How oft it has gathered renown!

While those stars were reflected in rivers of gore,

Where the cross and the lion went down;

And though few were their lights in the gloom of that hour,

Yet the hearts that were striking below

Had God for their bulwark, and truth for their power, And they stopped not to number their foe.

From where our green mountain-tops blend with the sky,
And the giant Saint Lawrence is rolled,

To the waves where the balmy Hesperides lie,
Like the dream of some prophet of old,

They conquered, and, dying, bequeathed to our care
Not this boundless dominion alone,

But that banner whose loveliness hallows the air,
And their motto of " Many in One."

We are many in one, while there glitters a star

In the blue of the heavens above,

And tyrants зhall quail, 'mid their dungeons afar,
When they gaze on that motto of love.

It shall gleam o'er the sea, 'mid the bolts of the storm,
Over tempest, and battle, and wreck,-

And flame where our guns with their thunder grow warm, 'Neath the blood on the slippery deck.

The oppressed of the earth to that standard shall fly,
Wherever its folds shall be spread,

And the exile shall feel 'tis his own native sky,
Where its stars shall wave over his head:

And those stars shall increase till the fulness of time

Its millions of cycles have run,—

Till the world shall have welcomed their mission sublime, And the nations of earth shall be one.

Though the old Alleghany may tower to heaven,

And the Father of Waters divide,

The links of our destiny cannot be riven

While the truth of those words shall abide.
Oh! then, let them glow on each helmet and brand,
Though our blood like our rivers should run;
Divide as we may in our own native land,

To the rest of the world we are ONE.

Then, up with our flag!-let it stream on the air;
Though our fathers are cold in their graves,

They had hands that could strike, they had souls that could dare,

And their sons were not born to be slaves.

Up, up with that banner!-where'er it may call,

Our millions shall rally around,

And a nation of freemen that moment shall fall,
When its stars shall be trailed on the ground.