They knew that outward grace is dust;

They could not choose but trust

In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill;

And supple-tempered will

That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust.
His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind,
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars,
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind;
Broad prairie rather genial, level-lined,
Fruitful and friendly for all human kind,
Yet also nigh to heaven, and loved of loftiest stars.
Nothing of Europe here,

Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,
Ere any names of Serf and Peer

Could Nature's equal scheme deface;

Here was a type of the true elder race, And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. I praise him not; it were too late;

And some innate weakness there must be
In him who condescends to victory
Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait,
Safe in himself as in a fate.

So always firmly he:

He knew to bide his time,

And can his fame abide,

Still patient in his simple faith sublime,
Till the wise years decide.

Great captains, with their guns and drums,
Disturb our judgment for the hour,

But at last silence comes;

These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame, The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American. -James Russell Lowell.

You

YOU lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier, You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, Broad for the self-complacent British sneer,

His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face,

His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease,
His lack of all we prize as debonair,

Of power or will to shine of art to please;

You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh, Judging each step as though the way were plain, Reckless, so it could point its paragraph,

Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain:

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding sheet
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet,
Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you?

Yes; he had lived to shame me from my sneer,
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen;
To make me own this hind of princes peer,
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men.

*This tribute appeared in the London "Punch," which, up to the time of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, had ridiculed and maligned him with all its well-known powers of pen and pencil.

My shallow judgment I had learned to rue,
Noting how to occasion's height he rose;
How his quaint wit made home-truths seem more true;
How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows.
How humble, yet how hopeful, he could be;

How, in good fortune and in ill, the same;
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.

He went about his work-such work as few
Ever had laid on head and heart and hand-
As one who knows, where there's a task to do, [mand;
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace com-
Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,
That God makes instruments to work his will,

If but that will we can arrive to know,
Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.

So he went forth to battle, on the side

That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's,

As in his peasant boyhood he had plied

His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights;
The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil,

The iron-bark that turns the lumberer's ax,
The rapid, that o'erbears the boatman's toil,
The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks;

The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear

Such were the deeds that helped his youth to train. Rough culture, but such trees large fruit may bear, If but their stocks be of right girth and grain.

So he grew up, a destined work to do,

And lived to do it; four long suffering years, Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through,

And then he heard the hisses changed to cheers.

HY error, Fremont, simply was to act

THX

A brave man's part, without the statesman's
tact,

And, taking counsel but of common sense,
To strike at cause as well as consequence.
O, never yet since Roland wound his horn
At Roncesvalles has a blast been blown
Far-heard, wide-echoed, startling as thine own,
Heard from the van of freedom's hope forlorn!
It had been safer, doubtless, for the time,
To flatter treason, and avoid offense

To that Dark Power whose underlying crime
Heaves upward its perpetual turbulence.
But, if thine be the fate of all who break

The ground for truth's seed, or forerun their years

Till lost in distance, or with stout hearts make

A lane for freedom through the level spears,

Still take thou courage! God has spoken through thee,

Irrevocable, the mighty words, Be free!

The land shakes with them, and the slave's dull ear
Turns from the rice swamp stealthily to hear.
Who would recall them now must first arrest
The winds that blow down from the free North-

west,

Ruffling the Gulf; or like a scroll roll back
The Mississippi to its upper springs.
Such words fulfill their prophecy, and lack
But the full time to harden into things.

-John Greenleaf Whittier.

WHAT

'HAT! Irving! thrice welcome, warm heart and
fine brain!

You bring back the happiest spirit from Spain,
And the gravest sweet humor that ever was there
Since Cervantes met death in his gentle despair.
Nay, don't be embarrasssed, nor look so beseeching,
I shan't run directly against my own preaching,
And, having just laughed at their Raphaels and Dantes,
Go to setting you up beside matchless Cervantes;
But allow me to speak what I honestly feel;-
To a true poet-heart a the fun of Dick Steele,

[will,

Throw in all of Addison minus the chill,
With the whole of that partnership's stock and good
Mix well, and, while stirring, hum o'er, as a spell,
The "fine old English gentleman;"-simmer it well:
Sweeten just to your own private liking, then strain,
That only the finest and clearest remain;
Let stand out of doors till a soul it receives
From the warm lazy sun loitering down through green
leaves;

And you'll find a choice nature, not wholly deserving
A name either English or Yankee-just Irving.

Hou

WOW beautiful it was, that one bright day
In the long week of rain!

Though all its splendor could not chase away
The omnipresent pain.

The lovely town was white with apple-blooms, And the great elms o'erhead

Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms,

Shot through with golden thread.

Help came but slowly; surely no man yet

Put lever to the heavy world with less: What need of help? He knew how types were set, He had a dauntless spirit, and a press.

Such earnest natures are the fiery pith,

The compact nucleus, round which systems grow: Mass after mass become inspired therewith,

And whirls impregnate with the central glow.

O Truth! O Freedom! how are ye still born
In the rude stable, in the manger nursed!
What humble hands unbar those gates of morn
Through the splendors of the New Day burst!
What, shall one monk, scarce known beyond his cell,
Front Rome's far reaching bolts, and scorn her
frown?

Brave Luther answered yes; that thunder's swell

Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown. Whatever can be known of earth we know, [curled; Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail shells

No! said one man in Genoa, and that no
Out of the dark created this New World.
Who is it will not dare himself to trust?

Who is it hath not strength to stand alone?
Who is it that thwarts and bilks the inward Must?
He and his works, like sand, from earth are blown.
Men of a thousand shifts and wilds, look here!
See one straightforward conscience put in pawn
To win a world; see the obedient sphere
By bravery's simple gravitation drawn !
Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old,
And by the Present's lips repeated still,
In our own single manhood to be bold,
Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will?
We stride the river daily at its spring,

Nor, in our childish thoughtlessness, foresee
What myriad vassal streams shall tribute bring,
How like an equal it shall greet the sea.

O small beginnings, ye are great and strong,
Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain!
Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong,
Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain.
-James Russell Lowell.