In yon pretty cottage contentment once reigned,
And all the bright dreams that thrift could inspire,
Now a prey in the grasp of demons unchained,
And melting away in the hot tongues of fire;
The playground once sacred to childhood's retreat,
With its carpet of green that lay soft on the earth,
Now trod to a mire by vandal-shod feet,

And still as the grave are the voices of mirth.

There's the far-reaching lawn; in the arbor below

Was the rope-braided gig that swept close by the

spring;

But the leaves have grown black in the path of the foe,
And a halter is made of the children's swing;
The slow-throbbing drum, and the fife's wailing cry,
And the voice of a wretch in his brief epilogue,
Proclaim the last act in the fate of a spy,

Who faces the doom of a dishonored dog.

There the smooth-flowing sea has extinguished its foam,

And soft on its bosom the night tapers burn; While the sailor-boy dreams of his sweetheart and home,

And the friends of his youth that await his return; But a black skulking shadow through darkness less black,

Like a fire-breathing courser, plows over the main; And swift as a sleuth-hound that is hot on the track, Submerges its prey in a white-foaming grave.

And thus through the years burned the passions of hate,

As if Satan's new reign on the earth had begun; Inciting to murder the filial ingrate,

And guiding the knife to the throat of the son;

Braiding haloes of flame from a blistered sky,
Whose fires put to shame the mad rocket's light;
And the iron messengers screaming by

To gash the red earth in their random flight.

But true to his trust, and with "Right" for his guide, 'Mid contention at home and confusion abroad, He held on his way till the foe's humbled pride

Had thrown down the altars set up to their god; But how oft, when his own heart was bursting with care,

Did he pause an encouraging word to bestow ;To patiently heed a supplicant's prayer,

And speak peace to a mind distracted with woe.

But peace spread her wings to the gaze of the world, And the stars sang again in the angels' employ; While the turbulent banners of discord were furled,

And the laughing sky rocked with hosannas of joy. When the battlefield buzzards had stilled their hoarse cry,

And the spirit of hate had fettered its rage;

Then a blow struck him down like a bolt from the sky! O God, could I cancel this blot from my page!

But the record is made, and the world knows the rest:

How it smothered in flowers the grief on his bier; And mourned him, of men the truest and best,

That had lived out the span of a mortal's career; Yes, the record is made, and this man has been tried As gold in a furnace that's heated seven-fold;

But the urn holds no dross to throw idly aside,
For fire hath determined the whole mass is gold.

LINCOLN

B. F. M. Sours

OVER Snowy fields of cotton,

Bend the faces brown and eager; Over snowy fields of cotton

Bend the forms with raiment meager. Theirs the labor, theirs the sunshine,

Theirs the lash and curse and sorrow; Theirs the pleading prayers to Heaven For some happier to-morrow; Theirs the suffering of the years, And the woe and bitter tears.

On all fields of strain and struggle
Was the black man ever toiling;
On all wide plantation stretches

Was his freeborn soul recoiling. There were masters kind and gentle, There were masters with their lashesSee! the age adown the gorges

Of the wild range madly dashes! Whither? Whither? Ah! which way? Earth shall know thy judgment day!

On the block were little babies

Sold from mothers' warm embraces; On the block were sold to demons Gentle lives with girlish graces; On the block were husbands, praying, Rent from wives all weeping, pleading, Shrieking in their dread undoing,

With no strong one interceding— Crime! crime trod that horrid path 'Neath the God of holy wrath.

Dark-all dark! O for the breaking
Of the damp, dark night all dreary!
Where is rest, is rest and rapture
For the sorrowful and weary?
See! the first faint streaks of dawning
Seem to make the cold sky shiver—
There! athwart the eastern meadows
Do the red streaks blend and quiver!
Does there dawn a brighter day?
The glad morn is on its way.

Nightmare? Yes; unrest and tossing
Seemed to shake the nation's slumber;
There were specters and hobgoblins,
There were ghosts which baffled number.
Old John Brown cast long his shadow
In the lurid lightning flashes;
Many another seemed to startle;

Then the dreamer, ghost-mad, dashes,

For the bad, and for the good,
To bathe brother swords in blood.

For a meteor flashed across the sky,

And it filled the world with dread;

And the flash and the clash of brothers' swords Piled field on field with dead:

For God had bathed his sword in Heaven

To lay a demon low,

To drive a nation to its knees

Stubborn-by blow on blow!

And a meteor flashed across the sky
That the inhuman thing might die.

Lincoln Lincoln! born to scatter
Shackles from the human cattle-
Born to throne the human instincts
High above the sullen battle

For the purse and pride and pleasure
Of a master-born to woo him
For his diadem of glory,

Bringing joy and manhood to him-
There are millions of men free
Who have not forgotten thee!

For the broken shaft was noble
Though a foeman did it sever;
And the glory of thee, chieftain,
Will be sung by bards forever:
For 'twas God above who sent thee
To the black man who was praying,
To deliver from his bondage,

And to cease a nation's straying;
And he wrought the work by thee,
That thy fellow-man is free.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Monroe Sprowl

IN cabined solitude, beside dim fires at midnight hour,
While others drowsed and dreamt of Fame's applause,
This man-to-be carved out his greatfulness,
With purpose stern and true as Pleiades.
He lit a wondrous light in darkened ways,
And set all hearts to song with music sweet,
As when soft, summer rain within the wood
Sets tender leaves to whispering.

heart

Grand Lincoln

Great Alcyone of men, about whom turns

The universe of Brotherhood. They thought thee poor And lonely there amid the knotted rails and granite

hills,