The blood clost roun' her heart felt glue
Too tight for all expressin',

Tell mother see how metters stood,
An' gin 'em both her blessin'.

Then her red come back like the tide
Down to the Bay o' Fundy,

An' all I know is they was cried
In meetin' come nex' Sunday.

JAMES RUSSELL Lowell.

EXTRACT FROM A SERMON ON THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Republican institutions have been vindicated in this experience as they never were before; and the whole history 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 fields 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 long-wronged 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 a mighty conqueror. Not thine any more, but the nation's; not ours, but the world's. Give him place, O ye prairies!

In the midst of this great continent his dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. Ye winds that move over the mighty places of the West, chant his requiem! Ye people, behold a martyr whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty!

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

MOTHER AND POET.

TURIN

AFTER NEWS FROM GAETA. 1861.

1:

Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me!

And good at my art, for a woman, men said.
But this woman, this, who is agonized here,
The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
For ever instead.

III.

What art can a woman be good at? oh, vain !

What art is she good at, but hurting her breast With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain? Ah, boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed, And I proud by that test.

IV.

What art's for a woman? To hold on her knees

Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat

Cling, struggle a little! to sew by degrees

And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat!
To dream and to dote.

V.

To teach them . . . It stings there. I made them indeed
Speak plain the word "country," I taught them no doubt
That a country's a thing men should die for at need.
I prated of liberty, .rights, and about

The tyrant turned out.

VI.

And when their eyes flashed . .
I exulted! nay, let them go
Of the guns, and denied not.

. Oh, my beautiful eyes! forth at the wheels But then the surprise, When one sits quite alone! Then one weeps, then one kneels !

- God! how the house feels!

VII.

At first happy news came, in gay letters moiled
With my kisses, of camp-life, and glory, and how
They both loved me, and soon, coming home to be spoiled,
In return would fan off every fly from my brow
With their green laurel-bough.

VIII.

Then was triumph at Turin. "Ancona was free!
And some one came out of the cheers in the street
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.
– My Guido was dead! I fell down at his feet,
While they cheered in the street.

-

IX.

I bore it; friends soothed me: my grief looked sublime
As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained

To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time
When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained
To the height he had gained.

X.

And letters still came,-shorter, sadder, more strong,
Writ now but in one hand. "I was not to faint.
One loved me for two . . . would be with me ere long:
And Viva Italia' he died for, our saint,

Who forbids our complaint."

XI.

My Nanni would add "he was safe, and aware

Of a presence that turned off the balls . . . was imprest It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear, And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed,

To live on for the rest."

XII.

"Shot.

On which without pause up the telegraph line
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta:
Tell his mother." Ah, ah, "his,'
""their" mother; not

"mine."

No voice says "my mother" again to me.
You think Guido forgot?

XIII.

What!

Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with heaven,
They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe?
I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven
Through that love and sorrow which reconciled so
The above and below.

XIV.

O Christ of the seven wounds, who look'dst through the dark To the face of thy mother! consider, I pray,

How we common mothers! stand desolate, mark,

Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away, And no last word to say!

XV.

Both boys dead! but that's out of nature; we all

Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one. 'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall.

And when Italy's made, for what end is it done,
If we have not a son?

XVI.

Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then?

When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport Of the fireballs of death crashing souls out of men? When your guns at Cavalli with final retort

Have cut the game short.