ENRY DE GARRS, of Sheffield, England, wrote these lines on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. They were published in England in 1889, and later in America, in the Century.

ON THE ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN

W1

HAT dreadful rumor, hurtling o'er the sea,
Too monstrous for belief, assails our shore?
Men pause and question, Can such foul
crime be?

Till lingering doubt may cling to hope no more.
Not when great Caesar weltered in his gore,
Nor since, in time, or circumstance, or place,
Hath crime so shook the World's great heart before.
O World! O World! of all thy records base,
Time wears no fouler scar on his time-smitten face.

A king of men, inured to hardy toil,
Rose truly royal up the steeps of life,

Till Europe's monarchs seemed to dwarf the while
Beneath his greatness-great when traitors rife
Pierced deep his country's heart with treason-knife;
But greatest when victorious he stood,

Crowning with mercy freedom's greatest strife.
The world saw the new light of godlike good
Ere the assassin's hand shed his most precious blood.

Lament thy loss, sad sister of the West:
Not one, but many nations with thee weep;
Cherish thy martyr on thy wounded breast,
And lay him with thy Washington to sleep.
Earth holds no fitter sepulcher to keep
His royal heart-one of thy kings to be

More potent over human destiny

Than all ambition's pride and power and majesty.

Yet, yet rejoice that thou hadst such a son;
The mother of such a man should never sigh;
Could longer life a nobler cause have won?
Could longest age more gloriously die?
Oh! lift thy heart, thy mind, thy soul on high
With deep maternal pride, that from thy womb
Came such a son to scourge hell's foulest lie
Out of life's temple. Watchers by his tomb!
He is not there, but risen: that grave is slavery's
doom.

POETICAL TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

T

By Emily J. Bugbee

HERE'S a burden of grief on the breezes of
Spring,

And a song of regret from the bird on its wing;
There's a pall on the sunshine and over the flowers,
And a shadow of graves on these spirits of ours;
For a star hath gone out from the night of our sky,
On whose brightness we gazed as the war-cloud roll'd
by;

So tranquil, and steady, and clear were its beams, That they fell like a vision of peace on our dreams.

A heart that we knew had been true to our weal,
And a hand that was steadily guiding the wheel;
A name never tarnished by falsehood or wrong,
That had dwelt in our hearts like a soul-stirring song.

Ah! that pure, noble spirit has gone to its rest,
And the true hand lies nerveless and cold on his breast;
But the name and the memory-these never will die,
But grow brighter and dearer as ages go by.

Yet the tears of a Nation fall over the dead,
Such tears as a Nation before never shed;
For our cherished one fell by a dastardly hand,
A martyr to truth and the cause of the land;
And a sorrow has surged, like the waves to the shore,
When the breath of the tempest is sweeping them o'er,
And the heads of the lofty and lowly have bowed,
As the shaft of the lightning sped out from the cloud.

Not gathered, like Washington, home to his rest, When the sun of his life was far down in the West; But stricken from earth in the midst of his years, With the Canaan in view, of his prayers and his tears. And the people, whose hearts in the wilderness failed, Sometimes, when the star of their promise had paled, Now, stand by his side on the mount of his fame, And yield him their hearts in a grateful acclaim.