Perish the wicked!” or blaspheming, – “Here | Forgive me, if from present things I turn
Lies our Belshazzar, our Sennacherib,

To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, Our Pharaoh, — he whose heart God hardenéd, And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn, So that he would not let the people go."

Nature they say, doth dote,

And cannot make a man Self-glorifying sinners! Why, this man

Save on some worn-out plan, Was but like other men :— you, Levite small,

Repeating us by rote : Who shut your saintly ears, and prate of hell For him her old World moulds aside she threw, And heretics, because outside church-doors,

And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Your church-doors, congregations poor and small

Of the unexhausted West,
Praise Heaven in their own way ; - you, autocrat | With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Of all the hamlets, who add field to field Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
And house to house, whose slavish children cower

How beautiful to see
Before your tyrant footstep ; — you, foul-tongued Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,
Fanatic or ambitious egotist,

Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;
Who thinks God stoops from his high majesty One whose meek flock the people joyed to be.
To lay his finger on your puny head,

Not lured by any cheat of birth, And crown it, that you henceforth may parade But by his clear-grained human worth, Your maggotship throughout the wondering And brave old wisdom of sincerity! world,

They knew that outward grace is dust; “I am the Lord's anointed!”

They could not choose but trust

Fools and blind ! In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, This Czar, this emperor, this disthronéd corpse,

And supple-tempered will Lying so straightly in an icy calm

That bent like perfect steel to spring again and Grander than sovereignty, was but as ye,

thrust. No better and no worse ; – Heaven mend us all !

His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind,

Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, Carry him forth and bury him. Death's peace A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; Rest on his memory! Mercy by his bier

Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined,
Sits silent, or says only these few words, — . Fruitful and friendly for all human kind,
“Let him who is without sin 'mongst ye all Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars.
Cast the first stone.” DINAH MARIA MULOCK.

Nothing of Europe here,
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,

Ere any names of Serf and Peer

Could Nature's equal scheme deface;
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Here was a type of the true elder race,

And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face FROM THE “ COMMEMORATION ODE.”

to face.

I praise him not; it were too late ; LIFE may be given in many ways,

And some innative weakness there must be And loyalty to Truth be sealed

In him who condescends to victory As bravely in the closet as the field,

Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait,
So bountiful is Fate ;

Safe in himself as in a fate.
But then to stand beside her,

So always firmly he :
When craven churls deride her,

He knew to bide his time,
To front a lie in arms and not to yield,

And can his fame abide,
This shows, methinks, God's plan

Still patient in his simple faith sublime,
And measure of a stalwart man,

Till the wise years decide.
Limbed like the old heroic breeds,

Great captains, with their guns and drums,
Who stand self-poised on manhood's solid

Disturb our judgment for the hour, earth,

But at last silence comes; Not forced to frame excuses for his birth,

These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, Fed from within with all the strength he needs.

Our children shall behold his fame,

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Such was he, our Martyr-Chief,

Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, Whom late the Nation he had led,

New birth of our new soil, the first American. With ashes on her head, Wept with the passion of an angry grief :

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

BURIAL OF LINCOLN.

| Around the secret of the mystic zone,

A mighty nation's star-bespangled flag PEACE! Let the long procession come,

Flutters alone,
For hark !- the mournful, muffled drum,

And underneath, upon the lifeless front
The trumpet's wail afar ;

Of that drear cliff, a simple name is traced ;
And see ! the awful car !

Fit type of him who, famishing and gaunt,

But with a rocky purpose in his soul,
Peace! Let the sad procession go,
While cannon boom, and bells toll slow;

Breasted the gathering snows,
And go, thou sacred car,

Clung to the drifting floes,

By want beleaguered, and by winter chased, Bearing our woe afar !

Seeking the brother lost amid that frozen waste. Go, darkly borne, from State to State,

Not many months ago we greeted him, Whose loyal, sorrowing cities wait

Crowned with the icy honors of the North, To honor, all they can,

Across the land his hard-won fame went forth, The dust of that good man !

And Maine's deep woods were shaken limb by limb. Go, grandly borne, with such a train

His own mild Keystone State, sedate and prim, As greatest kings might die to gain :

Burst from decorous quiet as he came.
The just, the wise, the brave

Hot Southern lips, with eloquence aflame,
Attend thee to the grave !"

Sounded his triumph. Texas, wild and grim,

Proffered its horny hand. The large-lunged West, And you, the soldiers of our wars,

From out his giant breast,
Bronzed veterans, grim with noble scars, | Yelled its frank welcome. And from main to main,
Salute him once again,

Jubilant to the sky,
Your late commander, -- slain !

Thundered the mighty cry,

HONOR TO KANE !
Yes, let your tears indignant fall,
But leave your muskets on the wall ;

In vain, — in vain beneath his feet we Aung
Your country needs you now

The reddening roses ! All in vain we poured Beside the forge, the plough!

The golden wine, and round the shining board

Sent the toast circling, till the rafters rung So sweetly, sadly, sternly goes

With the thrice-tripled honors of the feast ! The fallen to his last repose.

Scarce the buds wilted and the voices ceased Beneath no mighty dome,

Ere the pure light that sparkled in his eyes, But in his modest home,

Bright as auroral fires in Southern skies,

Faded and faded ! And the brave young heart The churchyard where his children rest,

That the relentless Arctic winds had robbed The quiet spot that suits him best,

Of all its vital heat, in that long quest
There shall his grave be made,

For the lost captain, now within his breast
And there his bones be laid !

More and more faintly throbbed.
And there his countrymen shall come, His was the victory; but as his grasp
With memory proud, with pity dumb,

Closed on the laurel crown with eager clasp,
And strangers, far and near,

Death launched a whistling dart;
For many and many a year !

And ere the thunders of applause were done

His bright eyes closed forever on the sun ! For many a year and many an age,

Too late, -- too late the splendid prize he won While History on her ample page

In the Olympic race of Science and of Art ! The virtues shall enroll

Like to some shattered berg that, pale and lone, Of that paternal soul !

Drifts from the white North to a Tropic zone,
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.

And in the burning day
Wastes peak by peak away,

Till on some rosy even
KANE.

It dies with sunlight blessing it; so he

Tranquilly floated to a Southern sea,
DIED FEBRUARY 16, 1857.

And melted into heaven!
ALOFT upon an old basaltic crag,
Which, scalped by keen winds that defend the He needs no tears who lived a noble life !
Pole

We will not weep for him who died so well ; Gazes with dead face on the seas that roll | But we will gather round the hearth, and tell

The story of his strife;

| All of him that was earth Such homage suits him well,

Lies mute and cold, Better than funeral pomp or passing bell !

Like a wrinkled sheath and old

Thrown off forever from the shimmering blade What tale of peril and self-sacrifice !

That has good entrance made
Prisoned amid the fastnesses of ice,

Upon some distant, glorious strife.
With hunger howling o'er the wastes of snow !
Night lengthening into months; the ravenous From another generation,
floe

A simpler age, to ours Old Ironsides came;
Crunching the massive ships, as the white bear The morn and noontide of the nation
Crunches his prey. The insufficient share Alike he knew, nor yet outlived his fame,
Of loathsome food;

0, not outlived his fame! The lethargy of famine ; the despair

The dauntless men whose service guards our shore Urging to labor, nervelessly pursued ;

Lengthen still their glory-roll
Toil done with skinny arms, and faces hued | With his name to lead the scroll,
Like pallid masks, while dolefully behind As a flagship at her fore
Glimmered the fading embers of a mind! | Carries the Union, with its azure and the stars,
That awful hour, when through the prostrate band Symbol of times that are no more
Delirium stalked, laying his burning hand

And the old heroic wars.
Upon the ghastly foreheads of the crew;
The whispers of rebellion, faint and few He was the one

At first, but deepening ever till they grew Whom Death had spared alone
Into black thoughts of murder,—such the throng Of all the captains of that lusty age,
Of horrors bound the hero. High the song W ho sought the foeman where he lay,
Should be that hymns the noble part he played ! On sea or sheltering bay,
Sinking himself, yet ministering aid

Nor till the prize was theirs repressed their To all around him. By a mighty will

rage. Living defiant of the wants that kill,

They are gone, — all gone : Because his death would seal his comrades' fate; They rest with glory and the undying Powers ;

Cheering with ceaseless and inventive skill Only their name and fame, and what they saved,
Those polar waters, dark and desolate.

are ours !
Equal to every trial, every fate,
He stands, until spring, tardy with relief, It was fifty years ago,
Unlocks the icy gate,

Upon the Gallic Sea,
And the pale prisoners thread the world once more, He bore the banner of the free,
To the steep cliffs of Greenland's pastoral shore And fought the fight whereofour children know, –
Bearing their dying chief !

The deathful, desperate fight!

Under the fair moon's light Time was when he should gain his spurs of gold | The frigate squared, and yawed to left and right.

From royal hands, who wooed the knightly state: Every broadside swept to death a score ! The knell of old formalities is tolled,

Roundly played her guns and well, till their fiery And the world's knights are now self-consecrate.

ensigns fell, No grander episode doth chivalry hold

| Neither foe replying more. In all its annals, back to Charlemagne,

All in silence, when the night breeze cleared the Than that lone vigil of unceasing pain,

air, Faithfully kept through hunger and through cold,

Old Ironsides rested there, By the good Christian knight, Elisha Kane!

Locked in between the twain, and drenched with

blood. FITZ.JAMES O'BRIEN.

Then hoineward, like an eagle with her prey !
0, it was a gallant fray, —

That fight in Biscay Bay !
THE OLD ADMIRAL.

Fearless the captain stood, in his youthful hardi.

hood :
ADMIRAL STEWART, U. S. N.

He was the boldest of them all,
GONE at last,

Our brave old Admiral |
That brave old hero of the past !
His spirit has a second birth,

And still our heroes bleed,
An unknown, grander life ;

| Taught by that olden deed.

set.

Whether of iron or of oak

One the grisly King of Terrors; one a Bourbon, The ships we marshal at our country's need,

with his errors, late to conscience-clearing Stillspeak their cannon now as then they spoke; ! Still floats our unstruck banner from the mast Well his fevered pulse may flutter, and the priests As in the stormy past.

their mass may mutter with such fervor

as they may: Lay him in the ground:

Cross and chrysm, and genuflection, mop and Let him rest where the ancient river rolls;

mow, and interjection, will not frighten Let him sleep beneath the shadow and the sound Death away.

Of the bell whose proclamation, as it tolls, By the dying despot sitting, at the hard heart's Is of Freedom and the gift our fathers gave.

portals hitting, shocking the dull brain Lay him gently down :

to work, The clamor of the town

Death makes clear what life has hidden, chides Will not break the slumbers deep, the beautiful what life has left unchidden, quickens ripe sleep,

truth life tried to burke. .. Of this lion of the wave,

He but ruled within his borders after Holy Will not trouble the old Admiral in his grave. Church's orders, did what Austria bade

him do ; Earth to earth his dust is laid.

By their guidance flogged and tortured ; highMethinks his stately shade

born men and gently nurtured chained On the shadow of a great ship leaves the shore ;)

with crime's felonious crew. Over cloudless western seas

What if summer fevers gripped them, what if Seeks the far Hesperides,

winter freezings nipped them, till they The islands of the blest,

rotted in their chains ? Where no turbulent billows roar, –

He had word of Pope and Kaiser ; none could Where is rest.

holier be or wiser; theirs the counsel, his His ghost upon the shadowy quarter stands

the reins. Nearing the deathless lands.

So he pleads excuses eager, clutching, with his There all his martial mates, renewed and strong, fingers meagre, at the bedclothes as he Await his coming long.

speaks ; I see the happy Heroes rise

But King Death sits grimly grinning at the With gratulation in their eyes :

Bourbon's cobweb-spinning, -as each cob“Welcome, old comrade,” Lawrence cries ;

web-cable breaks. “Ah, Stewart, tell us of the wars!

And the poor soul, from life's eylot, rudderless, Who win the glory and the scars?

without a pilot, drifteth slowly down the How floats the skyeyflag, - how many stars ? | dark; Still speak they of Decatur's name,

While 'mid rolling incense vapor, chanted dirge, Of Bainbridge's and Perry's fame?

· and flaring taper, lies the body, stiff and Of me, who earliest came ?

stark.

PUNCH. Make ready, all : Room for the Admiral ! Come, Stewart, tell us of the wars !" EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note,

As his corse to the rampart we hurried ; DEATH-BED OF BOMBA, KING OF

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot NAPLES, AT BARI. 1859.

O'er the grave where our hero we buried. COULD I pass those lounging sentries, through! We buried him darkly, at dead of night, the aloe-bordered entries, up the sweep of

The sods with our bayonets turning; squalid stair,

By the struggling moonbeams' misty light, On through chamber after chamber, where the And the lantern dimly burning.

sunshine's gold and amber turn decay to
beauty rare ;

No useless coffin inclosed his breast,
I should reach a guarded portal, where for strife Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;

of issue mortal, face to face two kings are But he lay, like a warrior taking his rest, met, —

With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,

WHITEFIELD.
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

FROM "HOPE."
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

LEUCONOMUS (beneath well-sounding Greek

I slur a name a poet may not speak) We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,

Stood pilloried on infamy's high stage, And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

And bore the pelting storm of half an age; That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er

The very butt of slander, and the blot his head,

For every dart thật malice ever shot. And we far away on the billow !

The man that mentioned him at once dismissed

All mercy from his lips, and sneered and hissed; Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,

His crimes were such as Sodom never knew, And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him ;

And perjury stood up to swear all true; But little he 'll reck, if they let him sleep on,

His aim was mischief, and his zeal pretence, In the grave where a Briton has laid him ! His speech rebellion against common sense ;

A knave, when tried on honesty's plain rule, But half of our heavy task was done,

And when by that of reason, a mere fool; When the clock tolled the hour for retiring; The world's best comfort was, his doom was past; And we heard the distant and random gun Die when he might, he must be damned at last. That the foe was sullenly firing.

Now, truth, perform thine office ; waft aside

The curtain drawn by prejudice and pride, Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

Reveal (the man is dead) to wondering eyes From the field of his fame fresh and gory! This more than monster in his proper guise. We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, He loved the world that hated him ; the tear But we left him alone in his glory.

That dropped upon his Bible was sincere ;
CHARLES WOLFE. Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife,

His only answer was a blameless life;
And he that forged and he that threw the dart

Had each a brother's interest in his heart.
ZIMRI.

Paul's love of Christ and steadiness unbribed GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 1682. Were copied close in him, and well transcribed.

He followed Paul ; his zeal a kindred flame, Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;

| His apostolic charity the same. In the first rank of these did Zimri stand ;

Like him crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas, A man so various, that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome ::

Forsaking country, kindred, friends, and ease; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong ;

Like him he labored, and like him, content Was everything by starts, and nothing long;

To bear it, suffered shame where'er he went. But, in the course of one revolving moon,

Blush, Calumny! and write upon his tomb, Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;

If honest Eulogy can spare thee room, Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,

Thy deep repentance of thy thousand lies, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.

| Which, aimed at him, has pierced the offended Blest madman, who could every hour employ,

skies ; With something new to wish or to enjoy!

And say, Blot out my sin, confessed, deplored, Railing and praising were his usual themes ;

| Against thine image in thy saint, O Lord !

WILLIAM COWPER. And both, to show his judgment, in extremes : So over-violent or over-civil, That every man with him was God or Devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;

SOUTHEY.
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.

FROM "THE VISION OF JUDGMENT."
Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late ; l.
He had his jest, and they had his estate.

had his estate. He said (I only give the heads), – he said He laughed himself from court, then sought relief. He meant no harm in scribbling; 't was his By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;

way For, spite of him, the weight of business fell

Upon all topics ; 't was, besides, his bread, On Absalom, and wise Achitophel.

| Of which he buttered both sides ; 't would Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,

delay He left no faction, but of that was left.

Too long the assembly (he was pleased to dread), JOHN DRYDEN. | And take up rather more time than a day,