Hark! still I hear that piteous wail; Guard, guard those windows! bar that door! They've robbed my house of all its store, They're breaking in! don't let them come! See how that rug those reptiles soil! On every limb-around my head; A fiend! a fiend! with many a dart, Oh, whither, whither shall I fly! Fiend! I know thy hellish purpose well! Avaunt, avaunt, thou hated sprite, And hie thee to thy native hell! He's gone! he's gone! and I am free; The flames are kindling round my head! This smoke! I'm strangling!- cannot fly! Oh, snatch me from this burning bed! There, there again! that demon's there, Thou fiend of fiends, what's brought thee back? Back in thy car? for whom? for where? He smiles, he beckons me to come; What are those words thou'st written there? Accept thy proffer, fiend? I will, And to thy drunken banquet come; Thus raved that maniac rum had made; Then silent sunk -- his soul had fled! THE THE KNIGHT'S TOAST. HE feast is o'er! Now brimming wine Before each eager guest; And silence fills the crowded hall, Then up arose the noble host, And, smiling, cried: "A toast! a toast! Here, before all, I pledge the name Of Staunton's proud and beauteous dameThe Ladye Gundamere!" Then to his feet each gallant sprung, And every cup was raised on high, "Enough, enough," he smiling said, Then, one by one, each guest sprang up, 'Tis now St. Leon's turn to rise; Envied by some, admired by all, Far famed in lady's bower, and hall St. Leon raised his kindling eye, "To one whose love for me shall last To one whose love hath longer dwelt, Each guest upstarted at the word, And Stanley said: "We crave the name, St. Leon paused, as if he would Then bent his noble head, as though EXTRACT FROM A SERMON ON THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. EPUBLICAN institutions have been vindicated in this ex of the last four years, rounded up by this cruel stroke, seems, in the providence of God, to have been clothed, now, with an illustration, with a sympathy, with an aptness, and with a significance, such as we never could have expected nor imagined. God, I think, has said, by the voice of this event, to all nations of the earth, "Republican liberty, based upon true Christianity, is firm as the foundation of the globe." Even he who now sleeps has, by this event, been clothed with new influence. Dead, he speaks to men who now willingly hear what before they refused to listen to. Now his simple and weighty words will be gathered like those of Washington, and your children, and your children's children, shall be taught to ponder the simplicity and deep wisdom of utterances, which, in their time, passed, in party heat, as idle words. Men will receive a new impulse of patriotism for his sake, and will guard with zeal the whole country which he loved so well. I swear you, on the altar of his memory, to be more faithful to the country for which he has perished. They will, as they follow his hearse, swear a new hatred to that slavery against which he warred, and which, in vanquishing him, has made him a martyr and a conqueror. I swear you, by the memory of this martyr, to hate slavery with an unappeasable hatred. They will admire and imitate the firmness of this man, his inflexible conscience for the right; and yet his gentleness, as tender as a woman's, his moderation of spirit, which not all the heat of party could inflame, nor all the jars and disturbances of this country shake out of its place. I swear you to an emulation of his justice, his moderation, and his mercy. You I can comfort; but how can I speak to that twilight million to whom his name was as the name of an angel of God? There will be wailing in places which no minister shall be able to reach. When, in hovel and in cot, in wood and in wilderness, in the field throughout the South, the dusky children, who looked upon him as that Moses whom God sent before them to lead them out of the land of bondage, learn that he has fallen, who shall comfort them? O thou Shepherd of Israel, that didst comfort thy people of old, to thy care we commit the helpless, the longwronged, and grieved! And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when alive. The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and States are his pall-bearers, and the cannon beats the hours with solemn progression. Dead, dead, DEAD, he yet speaketh! Is Washington dead? Is Hampden dead? Is David dead? Is any man that ever was fit to live dead? Disenthralled of flesh, and risen in the unobstructed sphere where passion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life now is grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life can be. Pass on, thou that hast overcome! Your sorrows, O people, are his peace! Your bells, and bands, and muffled drums sound triumph in his ear. Wail and weep here; God makes its echo joy and triumph there. Pass on! Four years ago, O Illinois! we took from your midst an untried man, and from among the people. We return him to you |