C

LINCOLN

ROWN we our heroes with a holier wreath

Than man e'er wore upon this side of death;
Mix with their laurels deathless asphodels,
And chime their pæans from the sacred bells!
Nor in your praises forget the martyred Chief,
Fallen for the gospel of your own belief,

Who, ere he mounted to the people's throne,
Asked for your prayers, and joined in them his own.
I knew the man. I see him, as he stands
With gifts of mercy in his outstretched hands;
A kindly light within his gentle eyes,
Sad as the toil in which his heart grew wise;
His lips half parted with the constant smile
That kindled truth, but foiled the deepest guile;
His head bent forward, and his willing ear
Divinely patient right and wrong to hear:
Great in his goodness, humble in his state,
Firm in his purpose, yet not passionate,
He led his people with a tender hand,
And won by love a sway beyond command.
Summoned by lot to mitigate a time
Frenzied with rage, unscrupulous with crime,
He bore his mission with so meek a heart
That Heaven itself took up his people's part;
And when he faltered, helped him ere he fell,
Eking his efforts out by miracle.

No king this man, by grace of God's intent;
No, something better, freeman,-President!

A nature modeled on a higher plan,
Lord of himself, an inborn gentleman!

PHO

HOEBE CARY was born near Cincinnati, Ohio, September 24, 1824. Her advantages for education were somewhat better than those of her sister Alice, whose almost inseparable companion she became at an early age. They were quite different, however, in temperament, in person and in mental constitution. Phoebe began to write verse at the age of seventeen years, and one of her earliest poems, Nearer Home, beginning with "One sweetly solemn thought," won her a world-wide reputation. In the joint housekeeping in New York she took from choice (Alice being for many years an invalid) the larger share of duties upon herself,

In society, however, she was brilliant, but at all times kindly. She wrote a touching tribute to her sister's memory, published in the Ladies' Repository a few days before her own death, which occurred at Newport, R. I., July 31, 1871. In the volume of Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary (Philadelphia, 1850) but about one-third were written by Phoebe. Her independently published books are Poems and Parodies (1854), and Poems of Faith, Hope and Love (1868).

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

UR sun hath gone down at the noonday,
The heavens are black;

Ο

And over the morning the shadows

Of night-time are back.

Stop the proud boasting mouth of the cannon,
Hush the mirth and the shout;

God is God! and the ways of Jehovah

Are past finding out.

Lo! the beautiful feet on the mountains,

That yesterday stood;

The white feet that came with glad tidings

Are dabbled in blood.

The Nation that firmly was settling

The crown on her head,

Sits, like Rizpah, in sackcloth and ashes,

And watches her dead.

Who is dead? who, unmoved by our wailing
Is lying so low?

O, my Land, stricken dumb in your anguish,
Do you feel, do you know?

Once this good man we mourn, overwearied,
Worn, anxious, oppressed,

Was going out from his audience chamber
For a season to rest;

Unheeding the thousands who waited.

To honor and greet,

When the cry of a child smote upon him
And turned back his feet.

"Three days hath a woman been waiting,"
Said they, "patient and meek.”

And he answered, "Whatever her errand,
Let me bear; let her speak!"

So she came, and stood trembling before him
And pleaded her cause;

Told him all; how her child's erring father
Had broken the laws.

Humbly spake she: "I mourn for his folly,
His weakness, his fall";

Proudly spake she: "he is not a TRAITOR,

And I love him through all!"

Then the great man, whose heart had been shaken By a little babe's cry;

Answered soft, taking counsel of mercy,

"This man shall not die!"

Why, he heard from the dungeons, the rice-fields,

The dark holds of ships;

Every faint, feeble cry which oppression

In her furnace, the centuries had welded
Their fetter and chain;

And like withes, in the hands of his purpose,
He snapped them in twain.

Who can be what he was to the people;

What he was to the State?

Shall the ages bring to us another

As good and as great?

Our hearts with their anguish are broken,

Our wet eyes are dim;

For us is the loss and the sorrow,

The triumph for him!

For, ere this, face to face with his Father

Our Martyr hath stood;

Giving into his hand the white record

With its great seal of blood!

That the hand which reached out of the darkness

Hath taken the whole?

Yea, the arm and the head of the people

The heart and the soul!

And that heart, o'er whose dread awful silence

A nation has wept;

Was the truest, and gentlest, and sweetest

A man ever kept!