A FALLAD OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.-GEORGE H. BOXER O, whither sail you, brave Englishman? Between your land and the polar star Come down, if you would journey there, And change your cloth for fur clothing, But lightly laughed the stout Sir John, All through the long, long polar day, And wherever the sail of Sir John was blown, Gave way with many a hollow groan, And with many a surly roar, But it murmured and threatened on every side And closed where he sailed before. Ho! see ye not, my merry men, Sir John, Sir John, 't is bitter cold, Bright summer goes, dark winter comes- But long e'er summer's sun goes down, The dripping icebergs dipped and rose, The ships were staid, the yards were manned, The summer's gone, the winter's come, We sail not on yonder sea: Why sail we not, Sir John Franklin? A silent man was he. The summer goes, the winter comes- I ween, we cannot rule the ways, The cruel ice came floating on, And closed keneath the lee, Till the thicken. ng waters dashed no more; 'T was ice around, behind, before My God! there is no sea! What think you of the whaler now? A sled were better than a ship, To cruise through ice and snow. Down sank the baleful crimson sun, And glared upon the ice-bound ships, The snow came down, storm breeding storm, Till the weary sailor, sick at heart, Sir John, the night is black and loug, The hard, green ice is strong as death: The night is neither bright nor short, What hope can scale this icy wall, The summer went, the winter came- But summer will melt the ice again, The winter went, the summer went, But the hard green ice was strong as deat Hark! heard ye not the noise of guns? Hurrah! hurrah! the Esquimaux God give them grace for their charity! Sir John, where are the English fields, Be still, be still, my brave sailors! You shall see the fields again, And smell the scent of the opening flowers, Oh! when shall I see my orphan child? Oh! when shall I see my old mother, And pray at her trembling knee? Be still, be still, my brave sailors! Ah! bitter, bitter grows the cold, Oh! think you, good Sir John Franklin, 'Twas cruel to send us here to starve, 'T was cruel, Sir John, to send us here, To starve and freeze on this lonely sea: Would rather send than come. Oh! whether we starve to death alone, Or sail to our own country, We have done what man has never done The truth is founded, the secret won We passed the Northern Sea! THE LAND OF OUR FOREFATHERS.-EDWARD EVERETT. WHAT American does not feel proud that he is descended from the countrymen of Bacon, of Newton, and of Locke? Who does not know, that while every pulse of civil liberty in the heart of the British empire beat warm and full in the bosom of our fathers, the sobriety, the firmness, and the dignity with which the cause of free principles struggled into existence here, constantly found encouragement and countenance from the sons of liberty there? Who does not remember that when the Pilgrims went over the sea, the prayers of the faithful British confessors, in all the quarters of their dispersion, went over with them, while their aching eyes were strained, till the star of hope should go up in the western skies? And who will ever forget that in that eventful struggle which severed this mighty empire from the British crown, there was not heard, throughout our continent in arms, a voice which spoke louder for the rights of America, than that of Burke or of Chatham, within the walls of the British parliament, and at the foot of the British throne? No, for myself I can truly say, that after my native land, I feel a tenderness and a reverence for that of my fathers. The pride I take in my own country makes me respect that from which we are sprung. In touching the soil of England, I seem to return like a descendant to the old family seat; to come back to the abode of an aged, the tomb of a departed parent. I acknowledge this great consanguinity of nations. The sound of my native language, beyond the sea, is a music to my ear beyond the richest strains of Tuscan softness, or Castilian majesty. I am not yet in a land of strangers while surrounded by the manners, the habits, the forms in which I have been brought up. I wander delighted through a thousand scenes, which the historians, the poets, have made familiar to us—of which the names are interwoven with our earliest associations. I tread with reverence the spots where I can retrace the footsteps of our suffering fathers; the pleasant land of their birth has a claim on my heart. It seems to me a classic, yea, a holy land, rich in the memories of the great and good; the martyrs of liberty, the exiled heralds of truth; and richer, as the parent of this land of promise in the west. I am not, I need not say I am not the panegyrist of Eng |