CELEBRATION OF THE FOURTEENTH ANNIVER SARY OF THE ADMISSION OF CALIFORNIA INTO THE UNION by REV. HENRY V. BELLOWS., FRANK BRET HARTE (paper ebook reader TXT) 📕

crime, not to know that all things are possible to them that

believe in the divine right of institutions as equal, just and

blessed as ours. You are not dismayed because moral cowards

and political infidels at home and abroad, point you to the

hallowed graves of a quarter of a million of American hearts

that have died for their country ! You have smoothed the

pathway of those victims and are waiting to alleviate the

fresh sorrows that arise, and you answer, it is worth a quarter

of a million more, and ours among them ! You spurn the filthy

calculation of the worth of National existence in hundreds of

millions, more or less. 

All it costs, be it millions or billions, it

is cheap at ! And when the National cannon, echo as yester

day from Fort Columbus, in Boston Harbor, to Alcatraz, the

glorious victory of your own Sherman at Atlanta, how far do

you yrink the party processions which take the season of

National rejoicing, to provide for the defeat of the Government

that has acheived these triumphs at Mobile and in Georgia,

will stretch their cheap and manufactured influence? I

solemnly declare that in that great opposition meeting in Union

Square, New York, of which so much is made in some Se-

cesh prints, hardly one single man figured, as President, Vice

President, Secretary, or Orator, whose weight and respecta.

bility, whose good sense or even whose name, gives him the

least real social, moral or political influence where he is

known if any such place can be found. The meeting was a

monstrous imposture, such as New York is abundantly capable

of getting up. It had no effect at home; it ought to have

none here.

No, Pioneers ! The re-election of our chief magistrate is a

foregone conclusion, as the result of the war is already a fixed

destiny. You have only to continue your allegiance, which no

distance can weaken, no trials abate, and California, blazing

in her native lustre, will find herself shining a gem of purest

ORATION. 27

water in a diadem where every State lends its appropriate jewel,

not one tarnished or missing, and all crowning a Union and a

Nationality that stretches from sea to sea, and from Time to

Eternity.

POEM

By FRANK BRET HARTE, Esq.

DELIVERED BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF CALIFORNIA PIONEERS ON THE FOURTEENTH

ANNIVERSARY OF THE ADMISSION OF CALIFORNIA INTO THE UNION.

Once more we meet, though in our native East

The sun that glitters on our birthday feast

Glanced as he rose on fields whose dews were blent

With deeper tints than those Aurora lent :

Though shorn his rays, his welcome disc concealed

In the dim smoke that veiled each battle-field,

Still striving upward, in meridian pride,

He climbed the wall that East and West divide

Saw his bright face flashed back from golden sand,

And the calm sea that laves our western land.

Strange was the contrast that such scenes disclose

From his high vantage o'er eternal snows :

There War's alarm the brazen trumpet rings

Here his love song the mailed cicala sings ;

There bayonets glitter through the forest glades-

Here yellow cornfields stack their peaceful blades ;

There the deep trench where Valor finds a grave

Here the long ditch that curbs the peaceful wave ;

There the bold sapper with his lighted train

Here the dark tunnel and its stores of grain,

Here the full harvest and the wain's advance

There the Grim Reaper and the ambulance.

Through scenes so adverse, what mysterious bond

Links our fair fortunes and the shores beyond?

Why come we here last of a scattered fold-

To pour fresh metal in the broken mould ?

To yield our tribute, stamped with Caesar's face,

To Caesar, stricken in the market place ?

POEM.

Ah, Love of Country is the secret tie

That joins these contrasts 'neath the arching sky ;

Though brighter paths our peaceful steps explore

We meet together at the Nation's door,

War winds her horn, and giant cliffs go down

Like the high walls that girt the sacred town.

And leaves a pathway to her throbbing heart,

From clustered village and from crowded mart.

Part of God's providence it was to found

A nation's bulwark on this chosen ground-

Not Jesuit's zeal nor Pioneer's unrest

Planted these pickets in the distant West ;

But He who first the nation's fate forecast

Placed here his fountains sealed for ages past,

Rock-ribbed and guarded till the coming time,

Should fit the people for their work sublime ;

When a new Moses with his rod of steel

Smote the tall cliffs with one wide-ringing peal,

And the old miracle the record told

To the new nation was revealed in Gold.

Judge not too idly that our toils are mean,

Though no new levies marshal on our green ;

Nor deem too rashly that our gains are small,

Weighed with prizes for which heroes fall

See, where thick vapor wreathes the battle line 5

There Mercy follows with her oil and wine ;

Or, where brown Labor with its peaceful charm,

Stiffens the sinews of the Nation's arm.

What nerves its hand to strike a deadlier blow,

And hurl its legions on the rebel foe ?

Lo, for each town new rising o'er our State

See rebel hamlets waste and desolate,

While each new factory, with its chimmey tall,

Seems a fresh mortar trained on Richmond's wall.

For this, brothers swings the fruitful vine,

Spread our broad pastures with their countless kine ;

POEM. 31

For this o'eihead the arching vault springs clear,

Sunlit and cloudless for one half the year :

For this no snow-flake, e'er so lightly pressed,

Chills the warm impulse of our mother's breast ;

Quick to reply, from meadows brown and sere,

She thrills responsive to spring's earliest tear ;

Breaks into blossom, flings her loveliest rose

Ere the white crocus mounts Atlantic snows ;

And the example of her liberal creed

Teaches the lesson that to day we heed.

Thus ours the lot with peaceful, generous hand

To spread our bounty o'er the suffering land :

As the deep cleft in Mariposa's wall

Hurls a vast river splintering in its fall

Though the rapt soul who stands in awe below,

Sees but the arching of the promised bow

Lo, the far streamlet drinks its dews unseen,

And the whole valley laughs a brighter green.

...

I

Publication Date: 03-21-2015

All Rights Reserved