TO ONE IN A DARKENED HOUSE.
O FRIEND, whose loss is mine in part,
Your grief is mine in part, although
I cannot measure in my
heart

The immeasurable woe.

As, from a shining window cast,
The fireside's gleam abroad is known,
I knew the brightness that is passed-
Its inner warmth your own.

O vanished firelight!-dark, without,
The late illumined sphere of space;
The warmth within has died about
Your darkened heart and face.

If I could hide your gloom with light,

Or breathe you back the warmth of old ... Oh vain! I stand in outer night,

And feel your inner cold!

AWAKE IN DARKNESS.

MOTHER, if I could cry from out the night
And you could come (Oh tearful memory!)
How softly close! to soothe and comfort me,
As when a child awakened with affright,—
My lips again, as weak and helpless quite,

Would call you, call you, sharp and plaintively!. Oh vain, vain, vain! Your face I could not see; Your voice no more would bring my darkness light. To this shut room, though I should wail and weep, You would not come to speak one brooding word, And let its comfort warm me into sleep,

And leave me dreaming of its comfort heard: Though all the night to morn at last should creep, My cry would fail, your answer be deferred.

SONNET-IN 1862.

STERN be the Pilot in the dreadful hour

When a great nation, like a ship at sea
With the wroth breakers whitening at her lee,
Feels her last shudder if her Helmsman cower;
A godlike manhood be his mighty dower!
Such and so gifted, Lincoln, mayst thou be,
With thy high wisdom's low simplicity

And awful tenderness of voted power.

From our hot records then thy name shall stand
On Time's calm ledger out of passionate days-
With the pure debt of gratitude begun,

And only paid in never-ending praise—
One of the many of a mighty Land,

Made by God's providence the Anointed One.

THE UNBENDED BOW.

In some old realm, we read, when war had come,
The bended bow, a warlike sign, was sent
Across the land-a summoner fierce but dumb;
When peace returned, the bow was passed unbent.

Oh sacred Land! not many years ago

(The symbol breathes its meaning evermore), Thy holy summons, came the bended bowThy fiery bearers moved from door to door.

Then sprang thy brave from threshold and from hearth;
Their angry footsteps sounded, moving far,
As when an earthquake moves across the earth;
Shone on thy hills the flame-lit tents of war.

O tender wife, in all thy weakness stern

With the great purpose which thy husband drew; O mother dreaming of thy son's return,

Strong with the arm whose strength thy country

knew ;

O maiden, proud to hold a hero's name

Close in thy prayerful silence, blameless: lo, Transfigured in the light of love and fame,

They come, the bearers of the unbended bow!

"The strife is hushed, O Land!"-this voice is plain"The bow of Peace is borne from door to door : May thy dread power be never tried again; But let thine arrows shine for evermore."

AUTHOR UNKNOWN.

[The following is a specimen of Negro Hymn-writing. It was in actual use, with musical accompaniment, among the slaves of the Southern States].

LITTLE CHILDREN, THEN WON'T YOU BE GLAD? (ARKANSAS.)

LITTLE children, then won't you be glad,

That you have been to heaven, an' you're gwine to go again,

For to try on the long white robe?

King Jesus he was so strong, my Lord,
That he jarred down the walls of hell.

Don't you hear what de chariot say?
De fore-wheels run by de grace ob God,
An' de hind-wheels dey run by faith.

Don't you 'member what you promise de Lord?
You promise de Lord that you would feed his sheep;
An' gather his lambs so well.

A Lady asks the Minstrel's rhyme

A little blind girl wandering

A lovely sky, a cloudless sun

A march in the ranks hard-pressed, and the road unknown

A sight in camp in the daybreak grey and dim

A silver javelin which the hills

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A sound of tumult troubles all the air

A weary, wandering soul am I

A whisper woke the air

Aboard, at a ship's helm

Above the petty passions of the crowd

Above the sunken sun the clouds are fired

Absence from thee is something worse than death

All grim and soiled and brown with tan

Am I not all alone?-The world is still

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Come, I will make the continent indissoluble

Come up from the fields, father, here's a letter from our Pete

Content, in purple lustre clad

Courage yet! my brother or my

sister

Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring

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Dearest, a look is but a ray

Death never came so nigh to me before

Dying, still slowly dying

Each Orpheus must to the depths descend
Each saddened face is gone, and tearful eye
Ere last year's moon had left the sky
Eternity's lost child, who full of
years

Fair isle that from the fairest of all flowers

Farewell, dear child, my heart's too much content
Father of Lakes! thy waters bend

Flood-tide below me! I watch you face to face.
For the Power to whom we bow

Four points divide the skies

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for y
From San Domingo's crowded wharf

Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling

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How soon, my dear, death may my steps attend

I am the Muse who sung alway