Lord of the universe! shield us and guide us, Sprinkled with starry light, Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, Loud rings the Nation's cry- The Union Soldier. COL. R. G. INGERSOLL, IN 1876. Τ THE past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for National life. We hear the sounds of the preparation-the music of the boisterous drums-the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators, we see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings of the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babies that are asleep. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing; and some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part; we see the wife standing in the door, with the babe in her arms-standing in the sunlight, sobbing; at the turn of the road a hand waves-she answers by holding high in her loving hands the child. He is gone, and forever. We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the wild, grand music of war--marching down the streets of great cities, through the towns and across the prairies down to the fields of glory-to do and die for the eternal right. We go with them, one and all. We are by their sides on all the gory fields, in all the hospitals of pain, on all the weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood—in the furrows of old fields. We are with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by the balls and torn with shells in the trenches by the forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel. We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine, but human speech can never tell what they endured. We are home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief. The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings governed by the lash -we see them bound hand and foot-we hear the strokes of cruel whips-we see the hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers Cruelty unspeakable! Outrage infinite! Four million bodies in chains-four million souls in fetters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. And all this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free. The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see men, and women, and children. The wand of progress touches the auction block, the whipping post, and we see homes, and firesides, and schoolhouses, and books, and where all was want, and crime, and cruelty, and fetters, we see the faces of the free. These heroes are dead. They died for liberty-they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless; under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. Earth may run red with other wars-they are at peace. In the midst of battles, in the roar of conflict they found the serenity of death. (A voice-"Glory.") I have one sentiment for the soldiers living and dead-cheers for the living, and tears for the dead. I Laus Deo! [On hearing the bells ring on the passage of the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery.] T is done! Clang of bell and roar of gun Every stroke exulting tells Loud and long. that all may hear, Of Eternity and Time! Let us kneel: God's own voice is in that peal, Lord, forgive us! What are we, For the Lord On the whirlwind is abroad; He has smitten with his thunder And the gates of brass are broken! Loud and long Lift the old exulting song; Sing with Miriam by the sea: He has cast the mighty down; Did we dare, In our agony of prayer, How they pale, Ancient myth and song and tale, Blotted out! All within and all about Freer breathe the universe God of justice! God of power! Do we dream? Can it be, In this land, at this hour, With the blossom on the tree, In the gladsome month of May, When the young lambs play, When Nature looks around On her waking children now, The bud upon the bough? Where our destiny is set, We have plowed, we have sown, The fat fluid of the slave, God of mercy! must this last? Do our numbers multiply But to perish and to die? Is this all our destiny below, That our bodies, as they rot; May fertilize the spot Where the harvests of the stranger grow? If this be, indeed, our fate, Far, far better now, though late That we seek some other land and try some other zone; The coldest, bleakest shore Will surely yield us more Than the storehouse of the stranger that we dare not call our own. Kindly brothers of the West, Have fed us, who are orphans beneath a stepdame's frown, Behold our happy state, And weep your wretched fate That you share not in the splendors of our empire and our crown! --C. F. MacCarthy. L Let Erin Remember the Days of Old. ET Erin remember the days of old, Ere her faithless sons betrayed her; When Malachi wore the collar of gold Which he won from her proud invader; When her kings with standard of green unfurled On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays, He sees the round towers of other days -Thomas Moore. The Harp that Once Through Tara's Hall. HE harp that once through Tara's halls ΤΗ The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled. So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er, And hearts that once beat high for praise No more to chiefs and ladies bright The chord alone that breaks at night Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, -Thomas Moore. A Patriot's Last Appeal. LET no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor. I would not have sub mitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the present domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom, I would have fought on the threshold of my country, and its enemy should enter by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the dangers of a jealous and watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country its independence-am I to be loaded with calumny, and not suffered to resent or repel it? No, God forbid ! If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life, O ever-dear and venerable shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son, and see if I have ever for a moment deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instil into my youthful mind, and for which I am now to offer up my life. My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice-the blood which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors that surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for nobler purposes, but which you are bent to destroy for purposes so grievous that they cry to Heaven. Be ye patient! I have but a few words more |