Day is Breaking.
It would be difficult, if not impossible, for any of us now here in the enjoyment, as yet, of all the liberties of freemen, to appreciate the hideosity of feeling with which the captive citizens of our republic in a New York or New England bastile, must watch the movements of the patriot of the republic.--We feel a sadness, it is true, at every disaster, and our hearts rebound at every victory; but we can only imagine in some degree the delight which must glow in the bosom of the captive patriot at every announcement of a glorious achievement of our arms. And if we add to this that the victory is won by the soldiers who have been the neighbors, even the blood, of the incarcerated patriot in his distant dungeon, we may appreciate in some degree the emotion which distasted the following lines, penned by one of the most gifted of our Western patriots, on his hearing successively, or perhaps in the same hour, the glorious victories of Price in Arkansas, Sibley in New Mexico, of Morgan wherever he has appeared, and of Johnston and Beauregard on the bloody plains of Shiloh. He might well exclaim, as we did even here in Richmond, after the dark hours we had suffered. " The Day, the Day is Breaking!"
‘ See ye not that day is breaking,
Freeman from their slumbers waiting,
Mightier efforts daily making
To break oppression's chain.
Who would to Northern power?
Who would quail in this stern hear?
Who, when clouds of darkness lower,
Could tamely yield again.
Freemen, to the tented field!
Right and justice be your shield:
Make the cruel for man yield
Your rights and liberty!
Strike, as ye have struck before!
Strike, as ye have struck, once
Strike, as patriot street of yore
Determined to be free?
Strike the volunteer low,
Strike with freedom's hand the blew--
Trees the proud, insulting foe
What freeman feel and dare!
Day is breaking in the West,
O'er the land that I love best,
Patriot in every break,
God and Liberty!
’
