A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH.

NATIONAL FAST, JANUARY 4, 1861.

WE sing "Our Country's" song to-night
With saddened voice and eye;

Her banner droops in clouded light
Beneath the wintry sky.

We'll pledge her once in golden wine

Before her stars have set:

Though dim one reddening orb may shine,
We have a Country yet.

"Twere vain to sigh o'er errors past,

The fault of sires or sons;

Our soldier heard the threatening blast,

And spiked his useless guns;

He saw the star-wreathed ensign fall,

By mad invaders torn;

But saw it from the bastioned wall

That laughed their rage to scorn!

What though their angry cry is flung

Across the howling wave,

They smite the air with idle tongue
The gathering storm who brave;
Enough of speech! the trumpet rings;
Be silent, patient, calm,-

God help them if the tempest swings
The pine against the palm!

Our toilsome years have made us tame;
Our strength has slept unfelt;
The furnace-fire is slow to flame

That bids our ploughshares melt;
"T is hard to lose the bread they win
In spite of Nature's frowns,-
To drop the iron threads we spin
That weave our web of towns,

To see the rusting turbines stand
Before the emptied flumes,

To fold the arms that flood the land

With rivers from their looms,

But harder still for those who learn

The truth forgot so long;

When once their slumbering passions burn,

The peaceful are the strong!

The Lord have mercy on the weak,

And calm their frenzied ire,

And save our brothers ere they shriek, "We played with Northern fire!" The eagle hold his mountain height,The tiger pace his den!

Give all their country, each his right! God keep us all! Amen!

BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER

CAROLINE.

SHE has gone, she has left us in passion and pride,

Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side!

She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow, And turned on her brother the face of a foe!

O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,

We can never forget that our hearts have been one, Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name, From the fountain of blood with the finger of flame!

You were always too ready to fire at a touch;
But we said, "She is hasty,—she does not mean much."
We have scowled, when you uttered some turbulent
threat;

But Friendship still whispered, "Forgive and forget!"

Has our love all died out? Have its altars grown cold? Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold? Then Nature must teach us the strength of the chain That her petulant children would sever in vain.

They may fight till the buzzards are gorged with their spoil,

Till the harvest grows black as it rots in the soil,

Till the wolves and the catamounts troop from their

caves,

And the shark tracks the pirate, the lord of the waves:

In vain is the strife! When its fury is past,

Their fortunes must flow in one channel at last,

As the torrents that rush from the mountains of snow Roll mingled in peace through the valleys below.

Our Union is river, lake, ocean, and sky:

Man breaks not the medal, when God cuts the die!

Though darkened with sulphur, though cloven with

steel,

The blue arch will brighten, the waters will heal!

O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,

There are battles with Fate that can never be won!