1842 - Poetry

On May 24, 1842, the Mecklenburg Jeffersonian published this poem on p.2:

POETRY.
 
FOR THE JEFFERSONIAN.

“20TH MAY, 1775.”
 
“Ubi Libertas primo prolata, ibi alenda!”
                                                Per se Nans.
 
We laud a day, whose high renown,
Shall to the latest times go down;
On which the sons of Saxon sires,
Inspired by Freedom’s genial fires,
The regal cross and crown defied,—
On freedom’s God alone relied,—
Pledged “Sacred Honor, Fortunes, Life!”—and then
O Liberty!  maintained thy cause like men!
 
Erect as the first Brutus stood,
With aspect stern and boiling blood,
So stood that patriotic band,
Who first took Freedom’s trembling hand,—
Their weapons bared, and threw away
The scabbard, on this fated day!
With fronts and eyes uplifted to the sun,
Exclaimed—“Now, freedom’s God, thy will be done!”
 
“It is Man’s Birth-Right to be Free!”
Why do we hail this Jubilee?
To feel as our forefathers felt,—
To kneel as our forefathers knelt, —
In freedom’s fame!!—The starry sky
Presents the prototype on high,
Of that broad banner, which Jove’s Bird … alone
Can wave triumphant over freedom’s home.
 
“Eternal vigilance,” they say,
Is what for Liberty we pay—
If ceaseless watchfulness alone,
Then, only can sustain her throne,
We’ll sacrifice our ease, and find
Reward of that exalted kind,
Which holds in utter scorn the man,
Who slinks away from Freedom’s van,
When Tyranny or civil tempests rend
Her Temple, which with life he should defend.
 
The day we celebrate beheld
Men fit for cabinet or field, —
Up to the front they sprang and stood
With dauntless hearts in fields of blood,
Which crowned their names with high renown,
And struck the royal Lion down; —
Onward they rolled as resistless as the wave,
Free as the winds, as ancient spartans brave.
 
Hail, Queen of the immortal mind!
Indomitable freedom, hail!
Thou shalt no manly bosom find,
That will beneath thy banner quail.
The “Oriflamme,” which here unrolled
Its trophies to the mountain breeze,
Was brilliant, broad, and uncontrolled,
As sun-beams on Atlantic seas;
That standard bright, that spangled Oriflamme,
Shall triumph o’er its foes, and ever lead the van.
                                                PER SE NANS.

The Latin epigram at the beginning means "Where freedom was first proclaimed, here is it nourished." An "oriflamme" means literally a banner, and more broadly a idea that attracts supporters. The phrase "per se nans" indicates that the author is speaking for himself, implying that he is a free man, not subject to another's will.