That the hand which reached out of the dark ness Hath taken the whole? Yea, the arm and the head of the people- And that heart, o'er whose dread awful silence Was the truest, and gentlest, and sweetest, A man ever kept! Once this good man, we mourn, overwearied, Was going out from his audience chamber Unheeding the thousands who waited To honor and greet, When the cry of a child smote upon him, "Three days hath a woman been waiting," And he answered, “Whatever her errand, So she came, and stood trembling before him, Told him all; how her child's erring father Had broken the laws. Humbly spake she: "I mourn for his folly, His weakness, his fall"; Proudly spake she: "he is not a TRAITOR, And I love him through all!" Then the great man, whose heart had been shaken By a little babe's cry; Answered soft, taking counsel of mercy, “This man shall not die!" Why, he heard from the dungeons, the ricefields, The dark holds of ships; Every faint, feeble cry which oppression In her furnace, the centuries had welded And like withes, in the hands of his purpose, Who can be what he was to the people; What he was to the State? Shall the ages bring to us another As good, and as great? Our hearts with their anguish are broken, Our wet eyes are dim; For us is the loss and the sorrow, The triumph for him! For, ere this, face to face with his Father Our Martyr hath stood; Giving unto his hand the white record, With its great seal of blood! TOLLING1 (April 15, 1865) BY LUCY LARCOM Tolling, tolling, tolling! Bearing a hope how dear! Tolling, tolling, tolling! See, they come as a cloud, Lifting up, like a banner, Signals of loss and woe; Moveth the solemn show. Tolling, tolling, tolling! Was it, O man beloved, Was it thy funeral only Over the land that moved? Slavery's curse went out. 1 By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company. Hundreds there have been, loftier than their kind, Heroes and victors in the world's great wars: Hundreds, exalted as the eternal stars, By the great heart, or keen and mighty mind; There have been sufferers, maimed and halt and blind, Who bore their woes in such triumphant calm That God hath crowned them with the martyr's palm; And there were those who fought through fire to find Their Master's face, and were by fire refined. But who like thee, oh Sire! hath ever stood Steadfast for truth and right, when lies and wrong Rolled their dark waters, turbulent and strong; Who bore reviling, baseness, tears and blood Poured out like water, till thine own was spent, Then reaped Earth's sole reward-a grave and monument! 1 By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company. EFFECT OF THE DEATH OF LINCOLN BY HENRY WARD BEECHER Again a great leader of the people has passed through toil, sorrow, battle and war, and come near to the promised land of peace into which he might not pass over. Who shall recount our martyr's sufferings for this people? Since the November of 1860, his horizon has been black with storms. By day and by night, he trod a way of danger and darkness. On his shoulders rested a government dearer to him than his own life. At its integrity millions of men were striking at home. Upon this government foreign eyes lowered. It stood like a lone island in a sea full of storms, and every tide and wave seemed eager to devour it. Upon thousands of hearts great sorrows and anxieties have rested, but not on one such, and in such measure, as upon that simple, truthful, noble soul, our faithful and sainted Lincoln. Never rising to the enthusiasm of more impassioned natures in hours of hope, and never sinking with the mercurial, in hours of defeat, to the depths of despondency, he held on with immovable patience and fortitude, putting caution against hope, that it might not be premature, and hope against caution that it might not yield to dread and danger. He wrestled ceaselessly, through four |