Dear mother, in thy prayer, to-night,

There come new words and warmer tears! On long, long darkness breaks the lightComes home the loved, the lost for years! Sleep safe, O wave-worn mariner !

Fear not, to-night, or storm or sea! The ear of heaven bends low to her!

He comes to shore who sails with me!

The spider knows the roof unriven,

While swings his web, though lightnings blaze-And by a thread still fast on heaven,

I know my mother lives and prays!

Dear mother! when our lips can speak—
When first our tears will let us see-

When I can gaze upon thy cheek,

And thou, with thy dear eyes on me'Twill be a pastime little sad

To trace what weight Time's heavy fingers Upon each other's forms have had

For all may flee, so feeling lingers!
But there's a change, beloved mother!
To stir far deeper thoughts of thine;
I come-but with me comes another

To share the heart once only mine!
Thou, on whose thoughts, when sad and lonely,
One star arose in memory's heaven-
Thou, who hast watched one treasure only-
Watered one flower with tears at even-

Room in thy heart! The hearth she left
Is darkened to lend light to ours!

There are bright flowers of care bereft,

And hearts-that languish more than flowers!

She was their light-their very air—

Room, mother, in thy heart! place for her in thy prayer!

NATHANIEL P. WILLIS.

THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD.

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The Arsenal at Springfield. THIS is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling,

Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms.

Ah! what a sound will rise-how wild and dreary-
When the death-angel touches those swift keys!
What loud lament and dismal Miserere

Will mingle with their awful symphonies!

I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus-
The cries of agony, the endless groan,
Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
In long reverberations reach our own.

On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer; Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song; And loud, amid the universal clamor,

O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.

I hear the Florentine, who from his palace
Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din ;
And Aztec priests upon their teocallis

Beat the wild war-drums made of serpents' skin;

The tumult of each sacked and burning village;
The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;
The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage;

The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;

The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,
The rattling musketry, the clashing blade-
And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,

The diapason of the cannonade.

Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,

With such accursed instruments as these, Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, And jarrest the celestial harmonies?

Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,

Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals nor forts;

The warrior's name would be a name abhorred;
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain!

Down the dark future, through long generations,
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,

I hear once more the voice of Christ say, 'Peace!"

Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals

The blast of war's great organ shakes the skies; But, beautiful as songs of the immortals,

The holy melodies of love arise.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

The Battle Autumn (1862).

THE flags of war like storm-birds fly,

The charging trumpets blow ;

Yet rolls no thunder in the sky,

No earthquake strives below.

And, calm and patient, Nature keeps
Her ancient promise well,

Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps
The battle's breath of hell.

THE BATTLE AUTUMN (1862).

And still she walks in golden hours

Through harvest-happy farms;

And still she wears her fruits and flowers
Like jewels on her arms.

What mean the gladness of the plain,
This joy of eve and morn,

The mirth that shakes the beard of grain,
And yellow locks of corn?

Ah! eyes may well be full of tears,
And hearts with hate are hot:
But even-paced come round the years,
And Nature changes not.

She meets with smiles our bitter grief,
With songs our groans of pain;
She mocks with tint of flower and leaf
The war-field's crimson stain.

Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear
Her sweet thanksgiving psalm;
Too near to God for doubt or fear,
She shares the eternal calm.

She knows the seed lies safe below
The fires that blast and burn;
For all the tears of blood we sow
She waits the rich return.

She sees with clearer eye than ours
The good of suffering born,-

The heart that blossoms like her flowers,
And ripens like her corn.

Oh, give to us, in times like these,

The vision of her eyes;

And make her fields and fruited trees
Our golden prophecies!

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Oh, give to us her finer ear!

Above this stormy din

We, too, would hear the bells of cheer

Ring Peace and Freedom in!

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

How Sleep the Brave!

H

OW sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung :
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

WILLIAM COLLINS.

Freedom's Battle.

FOR Freedom's battle, once begun,

Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,

Though baffled oft, is ever won.

Bear witness, Greece, thy living page!
Attest it, many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusky darkness hid,
Have left a nameless Pyramid,
Thy heroes, though the general doom
Has swept the column from their tomb,