THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA.

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Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one down to rest;
Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his breast;
Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said;
To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid.

Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay, Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away; . But, as tenderly before him, the lorn Ximena knelt,

She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt.

With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head;
With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead;
But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath
of pain,

And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again.

Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand and faintly smiled:

Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside her child?
All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied;
With her kiss upon his forehead, “ Mother!
"Mother!" murmured he, and

died!

"A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth,
From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely, in the North!"
Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead,
And turned to soothe the living, and bind the wounds which bled.

Look forth once more, Ximena ! "Like a cloud before the wind Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and death be

hind;

Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the wounded strive ; Hide your faces, holy angels! O, thou Christ of God, forgive!”

Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool, gray shadows

fall;

Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all! Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled, In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold. ·

But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued, Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and

lacking food;

Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung, And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue.

Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours ;

Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers;

From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air!

DEMOCRACY.

"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”. - Matthew vii. 12.

EARER of Freedom's holy light,

Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod,
The foe of all which pains the sight,
Or wounds the generous ear of God!

Beautiful yet thy temples rise,

Though there profaning gifts are thrown;
And fires unkindled of the skies

Are glaring round thy altar-stone.

Still sacred,

though thy name be breathed

By those whose hearts thy truth deride;
And garlands, plucked from thee, are wreathed
Around the haughty brows of Pride.

DEMOCRACY.

O, ideal of my boyhood's time!

The faith in which my father stood, Even when the sons of Lust and Crime

Had stained thy peaceful courts with blood!

Still to those courts my footsteps turn,

For, through the mists which darken there, I see the flame of Freedom burn,

The Kebla of the patriot's prayer!

The generous feeling, pure and warm,
Which owns the rights of all divine
The pitying heart the helping arm —
The prompt self-sacrifice
are thine.

Beneath thy broad, impartial eye,

How fade the lines of caste and birth!

How equal in their suffering lie

The groaning multitudes of earth!

Still to a stricken brother true,

Whatever clime hath nurtured him; As stooped to heal the wounded Jew The worshipper of Gerizim.

By misery unrepelled, unawed

By pomp or power, thou see'st a MAN

In prince or peasant slave or lord
Pale priest, or swarthy artisan.

Through all disguise, form, place, or name,
Beneath the flaunting robes of sin,

Through poverty and squalid shame,
Thou lookest on the man within.

On man, as man, retaining yet,

Howe'er debased, and soiled, and dim,

The crown upon his forehead set,

The immortal gift of God to him.

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And there is reverence in thy look;
For that frail form which mortals wear
The Spirit of the Holiest took,

And veiled his perfect brightness there.

Not from the shallow babbling fount
Of vain philosophy thou art;
He who of old on Syria's mount

Thrilled, warmed, by turns, the listener's heart,

In holy words which cannot die,

In thoughts which angels leaned to know,
Proclaimed thy message from on high,

Thy mission to a world of woe.

That voice's echo hath not died!
From the blue lake of Galilee,
And Tabor's lonely mountain side,
It calls a struggling world to thee.

Thy name and watchword o'er this land
I hear in every breeze that stirs,
And round a thousand altars stand
Thy banded party worshippers.

Not to these altars of a day,

At party's call, my gift I bring;

But on thy olden shrine I lay

A freeman's dearest offering:

The voiceless utterance of his will,

His pledge to Freedom and to Truth,
That manhood's heart remembers still
The homage of his generous youth.

Election Day, 1843.

THY WILL BE DONE.

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THY WILL BE DONE.

WE

E see not, know not; all our way
Is night, with Thee alone is day:
From out the torrent's troubled drift,
Above the storm our prayers we lift,
Thy will be done!

The flesh may fail, the heart may faint,
But who are we to make complaint,
Or dare to plead, in times like these,
The weakness of our love of ease?
Thy will be done!

We take with solemn thankfulness
Our burden up, nor ask it less,
And count it joy that even we
May suffer, serve, or wait, for Thee,
Whose will be done!

Though dim as yet in tint and line,
We trace Thy picture's wise design,
And thank Thee that our age supplies
Its dark relief of sacrifice.

Thy will be done!

And if, in our unworthiness,

Thy sacrificial wine we press;

If from Thy ordeal's heated bars

Our feet are seamed with crimson scars,
Thy will be done!

If, for the age to come, this hour

Of trial hath vicarious power,