Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863

Chorus:

Float, O Flag of mystic colors; red with love; star-gemmed thy Blue;
Peace blends in white thy Rainbow light, and waves her snow-wings through!

God of love, O smile upon us!
Love shall shine through all our laws;
Love shall link each State in Union;
Love which knows nor rest, nor pause.
Love is central Heart of nations;
Love will draw all wandering stars
To our field of boundless azure,
Held by God from all that mars!

Chorus:

Wildly pours our hearts' blood on thee – crimson current warm and true,
Each dead hero links us closer – float on Flag, Red, White, and Blue!

God of Union, smile upon us!
Flag of Union, greet the skies!
On thy stars and chording colors
Every hope for mortals lies!
Blasted be the hand would strike thee!
Blighted heart and palsied brain!
Float till earth knows no oppression,
Falsehood, bondage, slavery, pain!

Chorus:

Float, Flag of love; fused States and lives! shine stars on God's own Blue!
Love's crimson current gird them close! white-winged Peace wind through!

    M. W. C.

THE GOOD GODDESS OF POVERTY

[A Prose Ballad, translated from the French.]

We think the following beautiful Chant, in honor of the good goddess whose favors we are too apt to scorn, and whom we persist in treating with dire ingratitude, cannot fail to prove acceptable to the readers of the Editor's Table.

    M. W. C.

I

Desert paths strewed with golden sands, rich and undulating prairies, ravines loved by the bounding deer and agile chamois, mountains wreathed with clouds or crowned with glittering coronets of stars, wandering and leaping torrents, impenetrable and gloomy forests, – let her pass, let her pass:

The Goddess – the good Goddess of Poverty!

II

Since the creation of the world, since man was spoken into being, she has travelled over the earth, she has dwelt among men, she sings as she journeys, and works as she sings:

The Goddess – the good Goddess of Poverty!

III

Men gathered together to curse her. They found her too gay, too active, too strong, and too beautiful. They said: 'Let us tear off her wings, let us load her with chains, let us lay her low with blows, let her suffer, let her die:

The Goddess – the strong Goddess of Poverty!'

IV

They chained the good Goddess, they bruised and persecuted her, but they could not degrade her, for she sought refuge in the souls of poets, in the souls of peasants, in the souls of women, in the souls of artists, in the souls of saints:

The Goddess – the good Goddess of Poverty!

V

She has travelled longer than the Wandering Jew; she has journeyed farther than the swallow; she is older than the cathedral of Prague, yet younger than the little egg of the golden-crested wren; she has multiplied more upon the earth than the crimson strawberry in the green woods of Bohemia:

The Goddess – the good Goddess of Poverty!

VI

She is the mother of many children, and has taught them all the secrets of God; she spoke to the heart of Jesus upon the mount; to the eyes of Queen Libussa when she loved a peasant; to the spirit of John and Jerome on the pyre of Constance; she has more knowledge than all the doctors and all the bishops:

The Goddess – the good Goddess of Poverty!

VII

She makes all the grand and beautiful things that are to be seen upon the earth; it is she who cultivates the fields and prunes the trees; it is she who leads the flocks, breathing songs from her heart; it is she who catches the first crimsoning of the dawn, who receives the first smile of the rising sun:

The Goddess – the good Goddess of Poverty!

VIII

It is she who twines the green branches to make a little cabin for the woodman; who gives the piercing glance of the eagle to the poacher; it is she who brings up the prettiest and strongest little urchins; and who makes the spade and plough light for the hands of the old man, whose silver locks gleam like a halo round the wrinkled brow:

The Goddess – the good Goddess of Poverty!

IX

It is she who inspires the poet; who makes the flute, guitar, and violin eloquent under the fingers of the wandering and homeless artist: it is she who bears him upon her light wing from the source of the Moldau to that of the Danube; it is she who crowns his dark locks with the glittering dewdrops, who makes the sparkling stars shine so large and clear upon his uncertain path:

The Goddess – the good Goddess of Poverty!

X

It is she who instructs the ingenious artisan, who teaches him to hew the stone, to chisel the marble, to mould gold, silver, copper, and iron; it is she who, under the fingers of the aged mother and the rose-cheeked daughter, makes the flax fine and elastic as the golden tresses of the maiden: