Washington dead? Is Hampden dead? Is David dead? Is any man that ever was fit to live dead? Disenthralled of flesh, and risen in the unobstructed sphere where passion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life now is grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life can be. Pass on, thou that hast overcome!

Your sorrows, O people, are his peace! Your bells, and bands, and muffled drums sound triumph in his ear. Wail and weep here; God makes its echo joy and triumph there. Pass on!

Four years ago, O Illinois! we took from your midst an untried man, and from among the people. We return him to you a mighty conqueror. Not thine but the nation's; not ours, but the world's. place, O ye prairies!

any more, Give him

In the midst of this great continent his dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. Ye winds that move over the mighty places of the West, chant his requiem! Ye people, behold a martyr whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty! Henry Ward Beecher.

THE MODERN HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.

Behold the mansion reared by dædal Jack.

See the malt, stored in many a plethoric sack,
In the proud cirque of Ivan's bivouac.

Mark how the rat's felonious fangs invade
The golden stores in John's pavilion laid.

Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides,
Subtle grimalkin to his quarry glides,—
Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce rodent
Whose tooth insidious Johann's sackcloth rent.

Lo! now the deep-mouthed canine foe's assault,
That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt;
Stored in the hallowed precincts of the hall
That rose complete at Jack's creative call.

Here stalks the impetuous cow, with crumpled horn, Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn,

Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast, that slew The rat predacious, whose keen fangs ran through The textile fibres that involved the grain

That lay in Hans' inviolate domain.

Here walks forlorn the damsel crowned with rue,
Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs who drew,
Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn
Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn,
The harrowing hound, whose braggart bark and stir
Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur
Of puss, that with vermincidal claw

Struck the weird rat, in whose insatiate maw
Lay reeking malt, that erst in Ivan's courts we saw
Robed in senescent garb, that seemed, in sooth,
Too long a prey to Chrones' iron tooth.

Behold the man whose amorous lips incline,
Full with young Eros' osculative sign,
To the lorn maiden, whose lact-albic hands
Drew albu-lactic wealth from lacteal glands
Of the immortal bovine, by whose horn
Distort, to realm ethereal was borne
The beast catulean, vexer of that sly
Ulysses quadrupedal who made die

The old mordacious rat, that dared devour
Antecedaneous ale in John's domestic bower.

Lo! here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct
Of saponaceous locks, the priest who linked
In Hymen's golden bands the torn unthrift,
Whose means exigious stared from many a rift,
Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn,
Who milked the cow with implicated horn,
Who in fine wrath the canine torturer skied,
That dared to vex the insidious murricide,
Who let the auroral effluence through the pelt
Of the sly rat that robbed the palace Jack had built.

The loud cantankerous Shanghai comes at last,
Whose shouts aroused the shorn ecclesiast,
Who sealed the vows of Hymen's sacrament
To him who, robed in garments indigent,
Exosculates the damsel lachrymose,

The emulgator of that horned brute morose

That tossed the dog that worried the cat that kilt The rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.

GUARD THINE ACTION.

When you meet with one suspected
Of some secret deed of shame,
And for this, by all rejected

As a thing of evil fame,
Guard thine every look and action;
Speak no heartless word of blame;
For the slanderer's vile detraction
Yet may spoil thy goodly name.

When you meet a brow that's awing
With its wrinkled lines of gloom,
And a haughty step that's drawing
To a solitary tomb,

Guard thine action; some great sorrow
Made that man a spectre grim,

And the sunset of to-morrow

May have left thee like to him.

When you meet with one pursuing
Paths the lost have entered in,
Working out his own undoing

With his recklessness and sin,
Think, if placed in his condition,
Would a kind word be in vain?
Or a lock of cold suspicion

Win thee back to truth again?

There are spots that bear no flowers,--
Not because the soil is bad,
But that summer's gentle showers
Never made their bosoms glad.
Better have an act that's kindly,
Treated sometimes with disdain,
Than, by judging others blindly,
Doom the innocent to pain.

Sallie Ada Vance.

THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA.

At the terrible fight of Buena Vista, Mexican women were seen hovering near the field of death, for the purpose of giving aid and succor to the wounded. One poor woman was found surrounded by the maimed and suffering of both armies, ministering to the wants of Americans as well as Mexicans with impartial tenderness.

Speak and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away,
O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array,
Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they

near?

Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear.

"Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls; Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls!"

Who is losing? who is winning? "Over hill and over plain,
I see but smoke of cannon, clouding through the mountain

rain."

Holy Mother, keep our brothers! Look Ximena, look once

more:

"Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before, Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, foot and horse,

Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course.

Look forth once more, Ximena! "Ah! the smoke has rolled away;

And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks of gray. Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop of Minon*

wheels;

There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon at their heels.

"Jesu, pity! how it thickens! now retreat and now advance! Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance!

Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and foot together fall;

Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern ball."

*Minon (pronounced min-yon) was a Mexican general.

Nearer came the storm, and nearer, rolling fast and frightful

on.

Speak, Ximena, speak, and tell us who has lost and who has

Won:

"Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together fall; O'er the dying rush the living; pray, my sisters, for them all!

"Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting; Blessed Mother, save my brain!

I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of slain; Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they fall, and strive

to rise;

Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die before our eyes!

"Oh, my heart's love! oh, my dear one! lay thy poor head on my knee;

Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Caust thou hear me? Canst thou see?

Oh, my husband, brave and gentle! oh, my Bernard, look once

more

On the blessed cross before thee! Mercy! mercy! all is o'er."

Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one down to rest; Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his breast; Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said; To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid.

Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay, Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life

away;

But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt,

She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol belt.

With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head; With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead; But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain,

And she raised the cooling water to his parched lips again.

Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand, and faintly smiled;

Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside her

child?

All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart sup.

plied;

With her kiss upon his forehead, "Mother!" murmured he,

and died.