Forgiveness.

WHEN on a fragrant sandal tree,
The woodman's axe descends,
And she who blooms so beauteously,
Beneath the weapon bends-

E'en on the edge that wrought her death,
Dying, she breathes her sweetest breath,
As if to token in her fall,

Peace to her foes, and love to all.

How hardly man this lesson learns!

To smile and bless the hand that spurns;
To see the blow, to feel the pain,

And render only love again!

One had it but He came from Heaven,
Reviled, rejected and betrayed,

No curse He breathed, no 'plaint he made :
But when in death's dark pang He sighed,
Prayed for His murderers, and died!

MANY are the minds, whose controlling energy is felt in the movements and the destiny of nations, and whose names are imperishable in the monuments of history, that have been sustained and guided in their seasons of action and endurance, in the origination of plans of benevolence and patriotism, and in the fortitude which carried them into effect, by the inspiration of woman's genius, and the generous purity of her affections.

UPHAM.

2S

29

337

336

THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA.

Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the wounded

strive;

Hide your faces, holy angels! Oh, thou Christ of God for

give!

"Sink, Oh Night, among thy mountains! let the cool, gray shadows fall;

Dying brothers, fighting demons-drop thy curtain over all !" Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle

rolled,

In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold.

But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued, Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint, and lacking food;

Over weak and suffering brothers with a tender care they hung, And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue.

Not wholly lost, Oh Father! is this evil world of ours; Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden

flowers;

From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their

prayer,

And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air!

J. G. W.

AND where the natural halts, where cramped, confined,
The seen horizon bounds the baffled mind,
The Inspired begins-the onward march is driven—
Bridging all space, nor ending but in Heaven!
There, veiled on earth, we mark, divinely clear,
Duty and end-the There explains the Here!

LYTTON.

Forgiveness.

WHEN on a fragrant sandal tree,
The woodman's axe descends,
And she who blooms so beauteously,
Beneath the weapon bends-

E'en on the edge that wrought her death,
Dying, she breathes her sweetest breath,
As if to token in her fall,

Peace to her foes, and love to all.

How hardly man this lesson learns!

To smile and bless the hand that spurns;
To see the blow, to feel the pain,

And render only love again!

One had it but He came from Heaven,
Reviled, rejected and betrayed,

No curse He breathed, no 'plaint he made :
But when in death's dark pang He sighed,
Prayed for His murderers, and died!

MANY are the minds, whose controlling energy is felt in the movements and the destiny of nations, and whose names are imperishable in the monuments of history, that have been sustained and guided in their seasons of action and endurance, in the origination of plans of benevolence and patriotism, and in the fortitude which carried them into effect, by the inspiration of woman's genius, and the generous purity

of her affections.

UPHAM.

28

29

337

Che Arsenal at Springfield.

CERTAINLY if all who knew, that to be men, stands not in the shape of bodies, but in the power of reason, would listen awhile to Christ's wholesome and peaceable decrees, and not, puffed up with ignorance and conceit rather believe their own opinions than his admonitions; the whole world long ago (turning the use of iron into milder works,) should have lived in most quiet tranquillity, and have met together in a firm and indissoluble ARNOBIOUS league of most safe concord.

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 Miséréré

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

In long reverberations reach our own.

before us,

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

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-drum made of serpent's skin.

THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD.

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 beleagured 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, Oh 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 and forts.

The warrior's name would be a name abhorred !
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against its brother, on its forehead
Would wear forevermore 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.

339

LONGFELLOW.