PENNSYLVANIA HALL.

Read at the dedication of Pennsylvania Hall, Philadelphia, May 15, 1838.
The building was erected by an association of gentlemen, irrespective of
sect or party, "that the citizens of Philadelphia should possess a room
wherein the principles of Liberty, and Equality of Civil Rights, could
be freely discussed, and the evils of slavery fearlessly portrayed." On
the evening of the 17th it was burned by a mob, destroying the office of
the Pennsylvania Freeman, of which I was editor, and with it my books
and papers.


NOT with the splendors of the days of old,
The spoil of nations, and barbaric gold;
No weapons wrested from the fields of blood,
Where dark and stern the unyielding Roman stood,
And the proud eagles of his cohorts saw
A world, war-wasted, crouching to his law;

Nor blazoned car, nor banners floating gay,
Like those which swept along the Appian Way,
When, to the welcome of imperial Rome,
The victor warrior came in triumph home,
And trumpet peal, and shoutings wild and high,
Stirred the blue quiet of the Italian sky;
But calm and grateful, prayerful and sincere,
As Christian freemen only, gathering here,
We dedicate our fair and lofty Hall,
Pillar and arch, entablature and wall,
As Virtue's shrine, as Liberty's abode,