South Leaflets

SERIES, 1883

Boston.

SICUT PATRIBUS, SIT DEUS NOBIS.

By R. W. EMERSON.

READ IN FANEUIL HALL, ON THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEA, DECEMBER 16, 1873.*

THE rocky nook with hill-tops three
Looked eastward from the farms,
And twice each day the flowing sea
Took Boston in its arms;

The men of yore were stout and poor,
And sailed for bread to every shore.

And where they went on trade intent
They did what freemen can;

Their dauntless ways did all men praise,
The merchant was a man.

The world was made for honest trade,-
To plant and eat be none afraid.

The waves that rocked them on the deep
To them their secret told;

Said the winds that sung the lads to sleep,
"Like us be free and bold!"

The honest waves refuse to slaves
The empire of the ocean caves.

Old Europe groans with palaces,
Has lords enough and more;
We plant and build by foaming seas
A city of the poor;

For day by day could Boston Bay
Their honest labor overpay.

Used for the Old South Leaflets by special permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

We grant no dukedoms to the few,
We hold like rights and shall;
Equal on Sunday in the pew,
On Monday in the mall.

For what avail the plough or sail

Or land or life, if freedom fail?

The noble craftsmen we promote,
Disown the knave and fool;
Each honest man shall have his vote,
Each child shall have his school.
A union then of honest men,
Or union nevermore again.

The wild rose and the barbary thorn
Hung out their summer pride
Where now on heated pavements worn
The feet of millions stride.

Fair rose the planted hills behind
The good town on the bay,
And where the western hills declined
The prairie stretched away.

What care though rival cities soar

Along the stormy coast:

Penn's town, New York, and Baltimore,
If Boston knew the most!

They laughed to know the world so wide;
The mountains said: "Good-day!

We greet you well, you

Saxon men,

Up with your towns and stay!"

The world was made for honest trade,-
To plant and eat be none afraid.

"For you," they said, "no barriers be,
For you no sluggard rest;

Each street leads downward to the sea,
Or landward to the West."

O happy town beside the sea,

Whose roads lead everywhere to all; Than thine no deeper moat can be,

No stouter fence, no steeper wall!

Bad news from George on the English throne: "You are thriving well," said he; "Now by these presents be it known, You shall pay us a tax on tea;

'Tis very small no load at all
Honor enough that we send the call."

"Not so," said Boston, "good my lord,
We pay your governors here
Abundant for their bed and board,
Six thousand pounds a year.

(Your highness knows our homely word,)
Millions for self-government,

But for tribute never a cent."

The cargo came! and who could blame
If Indians seized the tea,

And, chest by chest, let down the same
Into the laughing sea?

For what avail the plough or sail
Or land or life, if freedom fail?

The townsmen braved the English king,
Found friendship in the French,
And Honor joined the patriot ring
Low on their wooden bench.

O bounteous seas that never fail!
O day remembered yet!

O happy port that spied the sail
Which wafted Lafayette!

Pole-star of light in Europe's night,
That never faltered from the right.

Kings shook with fear, old empires crave
The secret force to find

Which fired the little State to save
The rights of all mankind.

But right is might through all the world;
Province to province faithful clung,
Through good and ill the war-bolt hurled,

Till Freedom cheered and the joy-bells rung.

Judge him by the simple record of his life, and you will confess his greatness. Judge him by the motives of his conduct, and you will. bend with reverence before him. More than any other man in history, he is the impersonation of Liberty.

Early and intuitively he saw man as brother, and recognized the equal rights of all. Especially was he precocious in asserting the equal rights of the African slave. His supreme devotion to humanity against all obstacles was ennobled by that divine constancy and uprightness which from youth's spring to the winter of venerable years made him always the same,- in youth showing the firmness of age, and in age showing the ardor of youth; ever steady when others were fickle, ever faithful when others were false; holding cheap all that birth, wealth, or power could bestow; renouncing even the favor of fellow-citizens, which he loved so well; content with virtue as his only nobility; and, whether placed on the dazzling heights of worldly ambition or plunged in the depths of a dungeon, always true to the same great principles, and making even the dungeon witness of his unequalled fidelity.

Great he was, indeed,-- not as author, although he has written what we are glad to read; not as orator, although he has spoken much and well; not as soldier, although he displayed both bravery and military genius; not even as statesman, versed in the science of government, although he saw instinctively the relations of men to government. Not on these accounts is he great. Call him less a force than an influence, less "king of men than servant of humanity, his name is destined to be a spell beyond that of any king, while it shines aloft like a star. Great he is as one of earth's benefactors, possessing in largest measure that best gift from God to man, the genius of beneficence sustained to the last by perfect honesty; great, too, he is as an early, constant Republican, who saw the beauty and practicability of. Republican Institutions as the expression of a true civilization, and upheld them always; and great he is as example, which, so long as history endures, must inspire author, orator, soldier, and statesman all alike to labor, and, if need be, to suffer for human rights. The fame of such a character, brightening with the progress of humanity, can be measured only by the limits of the world's gratitude and the bounds of time.

Leaflets

SERIES, 1883

Boston.

SICUT PATRIBUS, SIT DEUS NOBIS.

By R. W. EMERSON.

READ IN FANEUIL HALL, ON THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEA, DECEMBER 16, 1873.*

THE rocky nook with hill-tops three
Looked eastward from the farms,
And twice each day the flowing sea
Took Boston in its arms;

The men of yore were stout and poor,
And sailed for bread to every shore.

And where they went on trade intent
They did what freemen can;

Their dauntless ways did all men praise,
The merchant was a man.

The world was made for honest trade,-
To plant and eat be none afraid.

The waves that rocked them on the deep
To them their secret told;

Said the winds that sung the lads to sleep,
"Like us be free and bold!"

The honest waves refuse to slaves
The empire of the ocean caves.

Old Europe groans with palaces,
Has lords enough and more;
We plant and build by foaming seas
A city of the poor;

For day by day could Boston Bay
Their honest labor overpay.

*Used for the Old South Leaflets by special permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.