x'HE BATTALION.
19
Visions come and go—
Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng,
From angel lips I seem to hear the flow
Of soft and holy song.
It is nothing now,
When heaven is open on my sightless eyes,
When airs from Paradise refresh my brow,
That earth in darkness lies.
In purer clime
My being fills of rapture—waves of thought
Roll in upon my spirit—strains sublime
Break over me unsought.
Give me now my lyre!
I feel the stirrings of a gift divine;
Within my bosom grows unearthly fire
Lit by no skill of mine.
^ctclress.
Mr. President, members of the Austin Literary Society,
Ladies and Gentlemen: I take it, that this Society is organ
ized for the purpose of waging a war, offensive and defensive
against ignorance, and that every member has enlisted for
the war, and not for the purpose of a little recreation, a little
dress-parade, a little martial music, and when the real war is
on, retire to the rear or withdraw from the contest. There
fore, bear with me,while I attempt to discuss the great enemy
of ignorance, consider his power, and wherefore, in the hypo
thetical battle royal, he ought to succeed. That enemy is
knowledge.
It has become a byword., that ‘‘wealth is power," and in
an ignominious sense it is. “Knowledge is power,” in a
higher and true sense. A street car mule, marked and
scarred by the merciless lash, in the hands of a merciless
driver, possesses more physical power, to move a load, than
the possessor of the giant intellect, which discovered the laws
that control the material universe, and measured, and weigh
ed, the mighty orbs that whirl in matchless grandeur through
infinite space.