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ARTH, let thy softest mantle rest

HORACE GREELEY.

On this worn child to thee returning,
Whose youth was nurtured at thy breast,
Who loved thee with such tender yearning.
He knew thy fields and woodland ways,
And deemed thy humblest son his brother; -
Asleep, beyond our blame or praise,

We yield him back, O gentle Mother!

Of praise, of blame, he drank his fill;
Who has not read the life-long story?.
And dear we hold his fame, but still

The man was dearer than his glory.
And now to us are left alone

The closet where his shadow lingers, The vacant chair that was a throne, The pen just fallen from his fingers.

Wrath changed to kindness on that pen, Though dipped in gall, it flowed with honey; One flash from out the cloud, and then

The skies with smile and jest were sunny.

Of hate he surely lacked the art,
Who made his enemy his lover:

O reverend head, and Christian heart!

Where now their like the round world over?

He saw the goodness, not the taint,
In many a poor, do-nothing creature,
And gave to sinner and to saint,

But kept his faith in human nature;
Perchance he was not worldly-wise,
Yet we who noted, standing nearer,
The shrewd, kind twinkle in his eyes,
For every weakness held him dearer
Alas, that unto him who gave

So much so little should be given! Himself alone he might not save,

Of all for whom his hands had striven. Place, freedom, fame, his work bestowed; Men took, and passed, and left him lonely; What marvel if, beneath his load,

At times he craved - for justice only.

Yet thanklessness, the serpent's tooth,
His lofty purpose could not alter;
Toil had no power to bend his youth,
Or make his lusty manhood falter;
From envy's sling, from slander's dart,
That armored soul the body shielded,
Till one dark sorrow chilled his heart,
And then he bowed his head and yielded.
Now, now, we measure at its worth

The gracious presence gone forever!
The wrinkled East, that gave him birth,
Laments with every laboring river;
Wild moan the free winds of the West
For him who gathered to her prairies
The sons of men, and made each crest
The haunt of happy household fairies;

And anguish sits upon the mouth

Of her who came to know him latest: His heart was ever thine, O South!

He was thy truest friend, and greatest!

He shunned thee in thy splendid shame,
He stayed thee in thy voiceless sorrow;
The day thou shalt forget his name,

Fair South, can have no sadder morrow.
The tears that fall from eyes unused,

The hands above his grave united, The words of men whose lips he loosed, Whose cross he bore, whose wrongs he righted, Could he but know, and rest with this!

Yet stay, through Death's low-lying hollow, His one last foe's insatiate hiss

On that benignant shade would follow!

Peace! while we shroud this man of men,
Let no unhallowed word be spoken!
He will not answer thee again,

His mouth is sealed, his wand is broken.
Some holier cause, some vaster trust
Beyond the veil, he doth inherit:

O gently, Earth, receive his dust,
And Heaven soothe his troubled spirit!
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

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Leave him to God's watching eye:

Trust him to the hand that made him.

Mortal love weeps idly by;

God alone has power to aid him.

Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know;
Lay him low!

GEORGE HENRY BOKER.

66

VALE.*

E mortuis nil nisi bonum." When For me the end has come, and I am dead, And little voluble chattering daws of men Peck at me curiously, let it then be said By some one brave enough to speak the truth: Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong. Down all the balmy days of his fresh youth,

To his bleak, desolate noon, with sword and song, And speech that rushed up hotly from the heart, He wrought for Liberty, till his own wound (He had been stabbed), concealed with painful art Through wasting years, mastered him, and he swooned,

And sank there where you see him lying now,
With that word "Failure" written on his brow.

But say that he succeeded. If he missed

World's honors, and world's plaudits and the wage

Of the world's deft lacqueys, still his lips were kissed
Daily by those high angels who assuage

The thirstings of the poets-for he was
Born unto singing, and a burthen lay

Mightily on him, and he moaned because
He could not rightly utter in the day
What God taught in the night. Sometimes, nathless,
Power fell upon him, and bright tongues of flame,
And blessings reached him from poor souls in stress,
And benedictions from black pits of shame,
And little children's love, and old men's prayers,
And a Great Hand that led him unawares.

So he died rich. And if his eyes were blurred
With thick films-silence! he is in his grave.
Greatly he suffered; greatly, too, he erred;

Yet broke his heart in trying to be brave.
Nor did he wait till Freedom had become

The popular shibboleth of the courtier's lips,
But smote for her when God Himself seemed dumb
And all his arching skies were in eclipse.

He was a-weary, but he fought his fight,
And stood for simple manhood; and was joyed

To see the august broadening of the light,
And new earths heaving heavenward from the void
He loved his fellows, and their love was sweet-
Plant daisies at his head and at his feet.

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Not less, but more, than others hast thou striven;
Thy victories remain :

The scars of ancient hate, long since forgiven,
Have lost their power to pain.

Apostle pure of freedom and of right,
Thou hadst thy one reward;

Thy prayers were heard, and flashed upon thy sight
The coming of the Lord!

Now, sheathed in myrtle of thy tender songs,
Slumbers the blade of truth;

But age's wisdom, crowning thee, prolongs
The eager hope of youth.

Another line upon thy hand I trace,

All destinies above:

Men know thee most as one that loves his race, And bless thee with their love!

BAYARD TAYLOR.

MY PSALM.

MOURN no more my vanished years:
Beneath a tender rain,

An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.

The west-winds blow, and, singing low,
I hear the glad streams run;

The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.

No longer forward nor behind

I look in hope or fear;

But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

I plough no more a desert land,

To harvest weed and tare;

The manna dropping from God's hand
Rebukes my painful care.

I break my pilgrim staff, — I lay
Aside the toiling oar;

The angel sought so far away

I welcome at my door.

The airs of spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the autumn morn;

Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven,
And the pale aster in the brook

Shall see its image given;

The woods shall wear their robes of praise,
The south-wind softly sigh,

And sweet, calm days in golden haze
Melt down the amber sky.

Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong;

The graven flowers that wreathe the sword
Make not the blade less strong.

But smiting hands shall learn to heal, —
To build as to destroy;

Nor less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.

All as God wills who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told!
Enough that blessings undeserved

Have marked my erring track;-
That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me back; —
That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good;-

That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight;—
That care and trial seem at last,

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