Our fathers cross'd the ocean's wave
To seek this shore ;

They left behind the coward slave

To welter in his living grave;

With hearts unbent, and spirits brave, They sternly bore

Such toils as meaner souls had quell'd ; But souls like these, such toils impell'd

To soar.

Hail to the morn, when first they stood On Bunker's height,

And, fearless, stemm'd the invading flood, And wrote our dearest rights in blood, And mow'd in ranks the hireling brood, In desperate fight!

O, 'twas a proud, exulting day,

For even our fallen fortunes lay

In light.

There is no other land like thee,
No dearer shore ;

Thou art the shelter of the free ; .
The home, the port of Liberty,

Thou hast been, and shall ever be,
Till time is o'er.

Ere I forget to think upon

My land, shall mother curse the son
She bore.

Thou art the firm, unshaken rock,
On which we rest;

And, rising from thy hardy stock,

Thy sons the tyrant's frown shall mock,

And slavery's galling chains unlock,
And free the oppress'd:

All, who the wreath of Freedom twine

Death the shadow of their vine,

Are bless'd.

We love thy rude and rocky shore,
And here we stand-

Let foreign navies hasten o'er

And on our heads their fury pour,

And peal their cannon's loudest roar,
And storm our land;

They still shall find our lives are given
To die for home ;—and leant on Heaven
Our hand.

LET Spain boast the treasures that grow in her mines;
Let Gallia rejoice in her olives and vines;

In bright sparkling jewels let India prevail,
With her odors Arabia perfume every gale :—
'Tis Columbia alone that can boast of the soil
Where the fair fruits of virtue and liberty smile.

MOUNT VERNON.

BY ERASTUS BROOKS.

THE time has come when the Mount Vernon estate, for a century or more in the possession of the Washington family, and for half that time owned by George Washington, as a bequest from his brother, must either become the common property of the nation, or belong to one or more of its citizens. It was to Mount Vernon, just one hundred years ago, the present winter, that Washington retired after throwing up his commission as an officer in the British army, in consequence of a royal order, that the officers of the regular army should take precedence of the officers of the provincial troops. It was from Mount Vernon Washington went to cross the mountains, to visit the head waters of the Ohio, and to penetrate the wilderness shores of the Alleghany. From this spot he was called to take charge of the armies of the United States, to preside over the Convention which framed the Constitution, to be the Chief Magistrate of the nation during the first and second terms of the Presidential office, and, finally, to be General-in-Chief of the army in the threatened war between France and the United States, which followed almost immediately upon his retirement from the city which bore his name. It was to Mount Vernon he

looked with longing eyes and delightful anticipations in all intervals from the public service-when he took leave of his companions in arms on the banks of the beautiful Hudson ; when he gave up his commission as general of the army to Congress, at Annapolis, and when he resigned his civic honors, and voluntarily retired from his eight years of consecutive and arduous service as President of the United States.

The practical question for us to consider is, whether this spot of earth-where Washington lived, died, and was buried; where he suffered an illness, which, though brief in time, was intense in character, where he gave utterance to these memorable words "I am not afraid to die "-shall be desecrated to purposes of speculation and dissipation, or be consecrated to the higher good of becoming the property of the people of the entire American Union.

I has passed into a proverb that republics are ungrateful, and when we remember the long series of omissions in regard to the claims of Washington, I almost think the proverb to. be true. Washington, it is known to all, gave his best affections, his hardest labors, his highest duties to the service of his country. Whether in the army, or in civil life, he drew no more from the treasury than a bare sufficiency to meet his daily expenses. Fifty-four years ago, the Congress of the United States received intelligence of his death. The Capitol was shrouded in sorrow, while a feeling of gloom pervaded the entire nation. In the freshness of the general sympathy for the loss of the lamented dead, Congress adopted resolu