Anecdotes of public men; by John W. Forney.

266 ANECDOTES OF PUBLIC MEN.
ion, most qualified to throw the largest vote against the Republican party-is this very State of Kentucky. So much for neutrality in politics and in war. In a few days came the first battle of Bull Run with all its attendant horrors, teaching to us the
severest lesson of the great conflict-the lesson that a great
people, armed for their own defense and for their own liberties,
must be prepared at allpoints. Just at that period the genius of
Boker broke out in a great poem, entitled "Upon the Hill before
Centreville, July 2I, i86I," from which I extract the following:
"Awake, my countrymen! with me
Redeem the honor which you lost,
With any blood, at any cost!
I ask not how the war began,
Nor how the quarrel branched and ran
To this dread height. The wrong or right
Stands clear before God's faultless sight.
I only feel the shameful blow,
I only see the scornful foe,
And vengeance burns in every vein
To die, or wipe away the stain.
The war-wise hero of the West,
Wearing his glories as a crest
Of trophies gathered in your sight,
Is arming for the coming fight.
Full well his wisdom apprehends
The duty and its mighty ends;
The great occasion of the hour,
That never lay in human power
Since over Yorktown's tented plain
The red cross fell, nor rose again.
My humble pledge of faith I lay,
Dear comrade of my school-boy day,
Before thee, in the nation's view;
And if thy prophet prove untrue,
And from thy country's grasp be thrown
The sceptre and the starry crown,
And thou and all thy marshaled host
Be baffled, and in ruin lost