THREE GRAINS OF CORN. To London, with impatient hope, he flies, He fain must stroll, the well-known haunt to trace. "Ah! here's the scene of frequent mirth," he said; My poor old Frenchman, I suppose, is dead. Egad, I'll knock, and see who holds the place." With rapid strokes he makes the mansion roar, Lo! who obeys the knocker's rattling peal? Capricious turn of sportive Fortune's wheel! Without one thought of the relentless foe, Just in his former trim he now appears; As if some hideous spectre struck his sight, His face, indeed, bespoke a heart full sore; GIVE ME THREE GRAINS OF CORN, MOTHER. MISS EDWARDS. IVE me three grains of corn, mother, GIV Only three grains of corn; It will keep the little life I have, Till the coming of the morn. I am dying of hunger and cold, mother, And O, the agony of such a death The half has never been told! 151 152 THREE GRAINS OF CORN. It has gnawed, like a wolf, at my heart, mother, All the livelong day, and the night beside, I dreamed of bread in my sleep, mother, How could I look to you, mother, For bread to give to your starving boy, When you were starving too? And I felt it in your bony hand, The queen has lands and gold, mother, While you are forced to your empty breast A skeleton babe to hold A babe that is dying of want, mother, As I am dying now, With a ghastly look in its sunken eye, What has poor Ireland done, mother, What has poor Ireland done, That the world looks on, and sees us starve, Perishing, one by one? Do the men of England care not, mother, The great men and the high, For the suffering sons of Erin's isle, Whether they live or die? There is many a brave heart here, mother, Dying of want and cold, While only across the channel, mother, Are many that roll in gold; OPPOSITION TO MISGOVERNMENT. There are rich and proud men there, mother, And the bread they fling to their dogs to-night Come nearer to my side, mother, And hold me fondly, as you held Quick, for I cannot see you, mother: Give me three grains of corn! 153 A OPPOSITION TO MISGOVERNMENT.-WEBSTER. LL the evils which afflict the country are imputed to opposition. It is said to be owing to opposition that the war became necessary, and owing to opposition, also, that it has been prosecuted with no better success. This, Sir, is no new strain. It has been sung a thousand times. It is the constant tune of every weak and wicked administration. What minister ever yet acknowledged that the evils which fell on his country were the necessary consequences of his own incapacity, his own folly, or his own corruption? What possessor of political power ever yet failed to charge the mischiefs resulting from his own measures upon those who had uniformly opposed those measures? The people of the United States may well remember the administration of Lord North. He lost America to his country, yet he could find pretences for throwing the odium upon his opponents. He could throw it upon those who had forewarned him of consequences, and who had opposed him, at every stage of his disastrous policy, with all the force of truth, reason, and talent. It was not his own weakness, his own ambition, his own love of arbitrary power, that disaffected the Colonies. It was not the Tea Act, the Stamp Act, the Boston Port Bill, that severed the empire of Britain. O, no! It was owing to no fault of Administration. It was the work of Opposition. It was the impertinent boldness of 154 BARBARA FRIETCHIE. Chatham, the idle declamation of Fox, the unseasonable sarcasm of Barré. These men, and men like them, would not join the minister in his American war. They would not give the name and character of wisdom to what they believed to be the extreme of folly. They would not pronounce those measures just and honorable which their principles led them to condemn. They declared the minister's war to be wanton. They foresaw its end, and pointed it out plainly, both to the minister and to the country. He declared their opposition to be selfisht and factious. He persisted in his course; and the result is in history. Important as I deem it, Sir, to discuss, on all proper occasions, the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still more important to maintain the right of such discussion in its full and just extent. Sentiments lately sprung up, and now growing popular, render it necessary to be explicit on this point. It is the ancient and constitutional right of this people to canvass public measures, and the merits of public men. It is a home-bred right, a fireside privilege. It has ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin, in the nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air and walking on the earth. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty; and it is the last duty which. those whose representative I am shall find me to abandon. This high constitutional privilege I shall defend and exercise within this House, and without this House, and in all places; in time of war, in time of peace, and at all times. Living, I will assert it; dying, I will assert it; and, should I leave no other legacy to my children, by the blessing of God I will leave them the inheritance of free principles, and the example of a manly, independent, and constitutional defence of them! BARBARA FRIETCHIE.-JOHN G. WHITTIER. UP P from the meadows rich with corn, The cluster'd spires of Frederick stand, BARBARA FRIETCHIE. Round about them orchards sweep, To the eyes of the famish'd rebel horde, On that pleasant morn of the early Fall, Over the mountains, winding down, Forty flags with their silver stars, Flapp'd in the morning wind: the sun Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, Bravest of all in Frederick town, She took up the flag the men haul'd down, In her attic-window the staff she set, Up the street came the rebel tread, Under his slouch'd hat left and right "Halt!"-the dust-brown ranks stood fast; "Fire!"-out blazed the rifle-blast. It shiver'd the window-pane and sash, Quick, as it fell from the broken staff, 155 |