Jason Elmer Hammond

“ And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep.
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep.
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge.
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. ”

“ Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street.
Wanders and watches with eager ears.
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door.
The sound of arms and the tramp of feet.
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread. ”

“ And, if our heraldry is in the hammer and the ax and the awl and the needle, we are to feel it a higher honor than if, in their place, we could have dragons and helmets and cross-bones and skulls. Our country’s greatness is to be the result, not of foreign war, but of domestic peace ”

“ For borne on the night-wind of the past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need.
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed. ”

“ And yet there are intelligence, prosperity, dignity, independence, and self-respect marking the laboring classes of our population, which lifts us far above all envy of the grandeur and glory of European display. They see that we have a people, flourishing and prosperous beyond comparison
It is the province of America to build, not palaces, but men ”

“ We are to look at this enlarging elevation of the working classes of men—a fact which may be considered the main index of our age—not as a difficulty to be limited, but as an attainment in which we greatly rejoice. ”

“ Other nations may see us, but not with the vines or olives of Italy or France, nor with the oranges and grapes of Spain or Portugal, nor even the rich and glowing verdure and teeming harvests of England and the lowland of Scotland. ”

“ Human talent, industry, wisdom, and skill, under the favoring blessing of Heaven, must now go forth to sow and to gather in the harvest of the earth. We are teaching lessons of political economy which the world has never heard before. ”

“ Hurrah! hurrah! the hard time’s nearly by!
’Mid truest peace we gladly see prosperity is nigh,
Work and reward for the millions.
For industry has always been America’s true pride,
Where idle none need ever be, with work on ev’ry side ”