CARRIER'S ADDRESS OF THE MISSOURI EXPOSITOR.
[By John N. Edwards.]
Time's tireless wing has borne away
The fond old year of yesterday;
Not crowned with flowers, as sweet June dies,
Mid weeping stars and tender skies,
And twilight fountains murmering by
A sad and tender lullaby;
But as some grim old warrior falls,
When foemen storm his castle walls.
Let winter mourn the monarch dead,
And heap his snow-drifts on his head-
For all his farewell gifts were hers,
The ermine robes, the frozen tears,
The naked trees, and everything
That woos and loves her rival, Spring.
'Tis vain, perchance, and sad as vain,
To call its memories back again;
Yet from without the silent past,
Dark shadows o'er the heart are cast;
A happy home where death has been,
To claim the fairest form within;
A tress of hair, but it's dimmed by years;
A tiny glove, but it's soiled by tears;
The little grave on the cold hill-side,
That was made the morn the baby died,
Mark all too well the ebb and flow
Of joys and sorrows here below;
And the sky is dark, and the night is drear,
God shield us now from the tempest here!
Great events are on the gale
That soon may tell a darker tale;
And oh! it was a fearful sight
To see the armies ranged for fight.
Grim Lincoln led the Northern host,
Imbued too strong with Seward's boast:
That all the States must now be free,
And curst the hydra, slavery.
Yet still against his subtle art
Came Breckinridge, with lion heart,
Douglas' war-cry too was heard,
And Bell's poor, threadbare rallying word.
They close in conflict-loud and high
Rang banner-shout and battle-cry.
Some fought for fireside, home, and wife,
Some fought for natural love of strife,
And some, alas! for very hate
Of all our memories, good and great.
Yet still against the mighty North
Breckinridge led on his own loved South;
And by his side was Yancey's crest,
A cockade on his dauntless breast-
With lance in rest and spur of fire
He charged where burst the storm-cloud higher; South Carolina's wave-kissed shore
Sent back a proud, defiant roar ;
And green Virginia's bosom rose
In sorrow o'er her sisters' woes.
In vain! in vain their strength and might!
In vain was Yancey's giant fight-
Down went the fairest banner there,
Hurled back the pious patriot's prayer;
And baffled, routed, forced to yield,
They slowly left the hated field.
Where will it end? God only knows!
Ask every Southern wind that blows;
Ask armed men that meet by day,
And swear to fling their lives away;
Ask every lone star on high,
That breathes the freedom of the sky;
Ask every curse that goes to heaven,
With hate and fury fiercely laden;
Ask South Carolina's bursting shock,
And feel the Union reel and rock,
As, with her lone flag in the sky,
She bids it now a last good-bye.
All is dreary, dire and dark-
No ray of hope, no tiny spark
To tell the watchers on the shore
The ship of state is safe once more.
Ah! see the grand old vessel quiver!
How her timbers groan and shiver!
Discord's lightnings flash around her,
Burn the ropes and shrouds above her;
Treason's bloated form is there;
War's cruel sword is keen and bare;
Ambition scales the dizzy mast,
And gives a black flag to the blast.
Helm aport! hard-hard alee!
God! how deadly white the sea!
Breakers! breakers! through the gloom
Hear their solemn, sounding boom.
Can you save her? Pilots, listen!
How the grim rocks gleam and glisten!
Save her for our father's sake,
Save her for the lives at stake,
Save her for the precious freight,
Save our glorious ship of state!
Starry flag, float on, unfurled,
The beacon of the wide, wide world,
And bear for aye, o'er land and sea,
The magic spell-word, Liberty!
Cause on effect - fate's giant wing
Is dark with terrors yet to bring,
And every day but adds a leaf
To destiny's sad book of grief.
Scarce e'er the mockery had begun,
To welcome England's monarch's son,
A helpless mass of bleeding clay,
The dying, butchered Walker lay,
And Rudler pines where tropics shed
A living poison on his head.
Away! away! o'er leagues away!
Italia's night is almost day.
Hear the watchword-Como rings
With the melody it brings.
Fight as brothers- let us die-
Die beneath our own loved sky!
Charge, then, heroes, do not waver,
Charge once more, and then you save her.
Charge with Freedom's battle cry,
Charge with Garibaldi!
Spain in torpor long had lain,
Now starts to living life again;
And Austria, wounded near to death,
Is threatening, with her feeble breath.
The garlands Solferino gave,
May deck the first Napoleon's grave;
But France needs other trophies now,
To bind around her monarch's brow;
A wild, grand shock where armies meet,
Crowns and kingdoms at her feet-
A second Moscow's lurid glare
Where England's Windsor towers fair;
The cold, despotic Russian Czar
Is brooding o'er Italian war,
And now a low, deep. deadly cry,
Is bursting out from Hungary.
Let tyrants tremble-Freedom's star
Is hung upon the verge of war,
And but to gain it crowns will sink,
Thrones totter on the fearful brink;
Sacked cities swell with lurid breath,
The reeking pestilence of death -
Till God's eternal justice reigns,
And blood wipes out the peasant's pains.
When sick of foreign courts and places,
Sick of titled heads and faces
Come gladly back to Lafayette,
The gem of Missouri's coronet.
Now where the velvet prairies gleam,
With flowery robe and sparkling stream,
The iron horse, with rapid flight
Will wake the echoes of the night;
And proudly toss its burning crest,
In honor to the giant West.
And where, beneath the grand, bright sun,
Is fairer town than Lexington?
God bless her commerce, trade and arts,
God bless her generous people's hearts,
And bless and crown her lovely girls
With smiles of love, and waves of curls-
Till every glance of merry light
Will raise them up a chosen knight,
Who'll swear by faith and tiny glove,
Who'll break a lance for his lady-love!
Thus, on the dawn of sixty-one,
Its uutried journey just begun
I wish you health, and wealth, and joy,
And gift besides for the CARRIER BOY.
MURDER DONE; OR, THE GYPSY'S STORY. [By John N. Edwards.]
Months of sorrow and days of sin;
A life gone out as the knife went in.
Hush! The moon was too young to see,
The shadows they fled aghast from me;
And a spirit wailed out from the open door:
'A dead man lies on the chamber floor!"
Evelyn Clare was debonair,
Darkness dwelt in his dreamy hair-
Dwelt, and dallied, and tangled in
Much of sorrow and more of sin.
Hush! The moon was behind a cloud-
Hidden away as a corpse in a shroud :
Hidden away, but it peered at me,
Peered and grinned through the aspen tree!
Love is ripe fruit ready to fall
In the arms of the sunshine over the wall
So fleet to fall and die in a day,
Its red gold ruined and kissed away.
Isabel came with her peach-colored face,
Ringlets ablow and her baby grace—
Came and sighed and evil came after,
And blood and tears in the wine of laughter -
'Till Isabel's lips in moan go over
All the languid lips of her lover.
Evelyn Clare was a king, they said,
Crowned with love from the heart to the head;
A pale-browed king to dabble about
In seas of silks, and revel, and rout,
With kisses for coin and ruined hair,
A panther king in his school-girl lair.
Girt about with adorable things,
Scented scarfs and talisman rings,
Plentiful tresses shorn away
From heads grown old and gray in a day.
The air was a song and the song had a tune,
Meet for the mystical roses of June.
The earth and the sky, and the sky and the air
Were all in league with Evelyn Clare.
He came and whispered: "My Gypsy maid,
Give me a tangled lock to braid."
To braid! Oh, God! if that were all-
Hush! can you hear the dead man fall?
I saw youth's crown on his Bacchanal crest,
Isabel's face on his dreaming breast-
Lost! lost! lost!
A beautiful soul is lost :
A beautiful soul went down-down -
Down like a ship at sea-
Who knows if a soul be lost?
The moon went into a cave
Whose stalactites were pointed with stars-
With a scintillant crescent of stars,
And a sweet south wind came over the rye
And broke on the lattice bars.
It was ten by the castle clock
Ten, and the night in bloom,
With bud of stars and blossom of clouds,
And the great rose of the moon.
The arbor ivies coiled and clung
To hear the accents of his tongue;
And Isabel for sounds to waft her
Pleasure-boat had low-toned laughter-
Laughter such as you seldom hear
Under the moon by a dead man's bier.
Hark! Is that a step on the staircase there-
Hushed in the light of the great knife bare?
Hark! to the bearded lips that tell :
"I love you, love you, Isabel !"
He lay in the moon for the moon to keep
Opiate wine for the drunkard sleep.
He lay with arms flung wide apart,
Weak fence for the guard of the lying heart.
He lay like a lover taking his rest,
The red in his cheeks and the dreams in his breast,
The red in his cheeks and the wind in his hair,
And Isabel's heart with Evelyn Clare.
Mad! Who's mad? The Gypsy maid,
Cast off, abandoned, and betrayed?
Who's mad? The Zingaree
The tropical plant from over the sea?
The poisonous flower stripped of its leaves,
And bound in the wreath of his lily sheaves ?
Avaunt! pale moon, and send your cloud
To rift me the rain of a lover's shroud!
Pretty little Isabel, prim as any pink,
Did you ever care about did you ever think,
Half a summer's afternoon of the suns that shine,
Over lovers woed with steel-stabbed for kisses over
Waxen lady, Isabel, dainty lady lapped in white,
Tawny Gypsies mingle dirges with the bridal's music
Hark! I hear the dancers dancing, hear the love-lorn light guitar,
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