FEINBERG/WHITMAN   LITERARY FILE    SPEECH FILE  "Death of Abraham Lincoln" (1879).  Reading book with proofs, printed pages, & A.MS. drafts.

Box 37   Folder 6

1879
WHITMAN'S READING BOOK FOR
LINCOLN LECTURE

Walt Whitman first read his lecture, "The Death
of Lincoln", in New York on 14 April 1879, the
anniversary of the assassination, and again in
Philadelphia in 1880 and in Boston in 1881. After
that, he gave it repeatedly, the last time on
15 April 1890.
Five pages of MS are an introduction to the
lecture. The text consists of 6 pages of proofs,
3 pages from MEMORANDA OF THE WAR, 2 pages of
MS, 13 pages of poems (not by Whitman, except
O Captain! My Captain!).

[41]

1879? Reading Book for Lincoln Lecture. Proofs, printed pages,

A.MS. (50p. bound, 5p. loose, 20½ x 13½ cm.)

Whitman has taken a copy of a book, The Bride of Gettysburg, by
J. D, Hylton (1878), a long poem, pasted the end-papers together
and pasted yellow glazed paper on the covers and end-papers. A
newspaper clipping is pasted to the front end-paper, and several
lines of introductory remarks and dates are in Whitman's hand.

Loosely inserted are 5 pages of MS beginning with 1 unnumbered
page, 3 pages numbered 2, 3 and 4, and a 5th page, unnumbered.
These pages, made by loose scraps pasted together and newspaper
clippings on p. 3 and 4, are an introduction to Whitman's lecture
on Lincoln.

The text, which follows, consists of 5½ pages of proof, 3 pages
from Memoranda of the War, 2 pages of MS, 13 pages of poems (not
by Whitman), all of which made up Whitman's Lincoln lecture. There

[....] [41A]

are many corrections throughout. The poems are: 'The Midnight
Visitor' (with Whitman autograph corrections), a translation
from the French of Henri Murger; Whitman's 'O Captain! My Captain!'
(tipped in) from Memories of President Lincoln; 'The Whale
Chase'; 'The Singer in Prison'; 'The Passions', by William Collins;
'The Battle of Naseby'; and 'Jo Anderson My Jo'. Pasted on the
back end-paper is a proof: WALT WHITMAN LAST NIGHT, April 15. 1880
at Association Hall, Philadelphia. In Whitman's hand is: 'at Hawthorne
Rooms, Boston April 15. 1881--'

On the cover, in Ingersol's hand, is: 'this book belonged to Walt
Whitman & was used by him in delivering his lecture on Lincoln.
Feby 11th 93.' Below this, in Traubel's hand (with some words obliterated)
is: 'Horace Traubel, knowing Walt Whitman & knowing
Robert G. Ingersoll, & as if by the hand of Whitman's [  ],
delights to /  / this transfer.'

The Whitman Reading Book in the Library of Congress (see C.J. Furness,
Walt Whitman's Worshop, 1928, pp. 204-206) is similar in
style, but corrections in 'The Midnight Visitor' differ.

[42]

Reading Book for Lincoln Lecture: 2

Whitman first read his lecture on The Death of Lincoln on 14 April
1879 in New York, on the anniversary of the assassination, and again
in Philadelphia and Boston in 1880 and 1881. He gave it repeatedly,
the last time on 15 April 1890.

(See Ingersoll letter to Traubel, 27 November 1892, asking for a
keepsake of Whitman.)

WALT WHITMAN'S READING BOOK.

1. PRIDE OF GETTYSBURG - Episode of 1863. J.D. Hylton.
1878. (172 p. 20 1/2 cm.)

Whitman pasted the end papers together and also pasted
yellow glazed paper on the covers and end papers. A
newspaper clipping is pasted to the front end paper and
several lines of introductory remarks and dates are
written by Whitman.

Loosely inserted are 5 pages of manuscript beginning
with 1 unnumbered page and 3 pages numbered 2, 3 and 4
and the 5th page not numbered. These ms. pages are in
the form of an introduction and is not to be found in
any of the printed versions of the lecture.

Then follow the printed proof sheets of his lecture on
Lincoln (Feinberg 239). The recto of each of the pages
of the book are crossed thru and the printed proofs of
the lecture pasted on the opposite pate. These proof

[P.2]

sheets have numerous corrections by Whitman. Beginning
Page 45 (of the original book) are two and a half printed
pages from "Memoranda During the War" (P. 47-49) with
corrections, continuing with additional proof sheets of
the Lincoln Lecture. Pasted to page 58, a full page of
manuscript and on page 64, additional manuscript (91 words)
to be inserted in reading the following page.

The Lincoln lecture is followed by the proof of "The
Midnight Visitor", with Whitman autograph corrections,
a translation form the French of Henri Murger. Page 41
and 42 from "Memories of President Lincoln", which includes
"O Captain! My Captain!" is tipped in the proof pages of
"The Whale Chase" (Selections from a "Song of Joys");
"The Passions" by William Collins; "The Midnight Visitor"
[from Anacreon] with autograph corrections; "The Battle
of Naseby"; "John Anderson, My Jo". Tipped to back end
paper, top of proof title "Walt Whitman Last Night", with
autograph notation by Whitman "at Hawthorne Rooms. Boston
April 15, 1881 -"

P. 3

This Reading Book has the following inscription on the
front cover in the autograph of Robert G. Ingersoll.
"This book belonged to Walt Whitman and was used by
him in delivering his lecture on Lincoln. Robert
Ingersoll wrote the date Feb. 11th '93. Below this
inscription is another written by Horace Traubel.
"Horace Traubel, knowing Walt Whitman and knowing Robert
Ingersoll, and as if by the hand of Whitman's [  ]
delights to [  ] this transfer. Many of
the words have been obliterated.

This Whitman Reading Book is somewhat similar in style
to the Reading Book in the Harned Collection of The
Library of Congress. A comparison can be made of the
manuscript corrections made by Whitman to "The Midnight
Visitor [from Anacreon] P. 127 of this copy with the
photostat of The Library of Congress copy. The corrections
are disimilar. The Reading Book in The Library
of Congress collection is described and analyzed at some
length in "Walt Whitman's Workshop" - C. J. Furness, 1928
P. 204-206.

P. 4

Whitman first read this lecture on the Death of Lincoln
on April 14, 1879 (Feinberg No. 55) in New York, on the
anniversary of Lincoln's assassination, and again in
Philadelphia and Boston in 1880 and 1881. He delivered
it repeatedly, the last occasion being April 15th, 1890
(Feinberg No. 103).

This copy was given to Ingersoll by Traubel in response
 to a request from Ingersoll for a keepsake of Walt
Whitman. See Ingersoll letter to Traubel, Nov. 27,
to Mrs. W. Sinkler of Philadelphia. Purchased from
Mrs. Sinler thru Mabel Zahn of Sessler's, March 28,
1955.

This book belonged
to Walt Whitman &
was used by him in
delivering his lecture
on Lincoln
Feby 11th 93.

& knowing Robert L
[? Ingersoll ?], & as if by
the hand of Whitman's
[?], delights to
[?] this transfer

[*[nearly twenty two]
[years bygone]
[April 14.15]
[1865]
[1865]
[twenty]
[alone ???]
[twenty two] *]

How often since that dark and dripping 
Saturday-that chilly April day, now [*fifteen*]
years bygone,-my heart has entertained
the dream, the wish, to give of
Abraham Lincoln's death its own special
thought and memorial. Yet now the
sought-for opportunity offers, I find my
notes incompetent, (why, for truly profound
themes, is statement so idle? why
does the right phrase never offer?) and 
the fit tribute I dreamed of waits unprepared
as ever. My talk here [in???] is
less because of itself or anything in it, and
nearly altogether because I feel a desire, 
apart from any talk, to specify the day, 
the martyrdom. It Is for this, my friends,
I have [*invited*] you together [*to speak a reverent word as recalled of this
event- and around it, indeed, as emblem and  
centre, for the loss of all the soldiers- aye amid
all civilians too- whose death resulted
from that war. *] Oft as the 
rolling years bring back this hour, let it
again however briefly be dwelt upon.
For my part, I hope and intend, till
my own dying day, whenever the 14th or 
15th of April comes, to annually gather a
few friends, and hold its tragic reminiscence.
No narrow or sectional reminiscence.
It belongs to These States in their
entirety--not the North only, but the
South--perhaps belongs most tenderly and
devoutly to the South, of all; for there,
really, this man's birth-stock. There and
thence his antecedent stamp. Why should
I not say that thence his manliest traits--
his universality- his canny, easy ways and
words upon the surface-his inflexible determination
and courage at heart? Have
you ever realized it, my friends, that Lincoln, 
though grafted on the West, is essentially,
in personnel and character, a
Southern contribution?
[*1135
py/xx*]

The central fact of
my discourse this afternoon [tonight]
[its radiations], will be
the death of Abraham 
Lincoln. An old
[An old] Virginia friend
who called upon me lately today
my proposed talk
-when the theme of [this dinner] 
was mention'd, said, "Why
rake up the embers of the
secession War? Why the
murder of President Lincoln?
adding, "I think we [all] now have
almost hate to hear those things
mention'd. North or South. Let them sleep
in quiet in their graves & 
moulder away till gone".
My old friend's suggestion
has a certain sound point ,
which I too see clearly enough 
But I also see other points the reasons
and surmounting and enclosing

1

2
The war and the doings
of the war, are facts which
can never be ignored.
But we can treat The
whole matter, now, and 
henceforth with [with a spirit of]
tolerance and even fraternity, and philosophy.
To me, I say, when given [trea]
the [that] true spirit, we cannot
have [neither talk or print can have] too many reminiscences
of the Secession War and [or] 
things that led to it and all belonging to it.



Already, the events of [1862 and'4s and the
seasons that immediately preceded, as well as
these that closely followed them] [*that period [1862 and 3]*] have quite
lost [their direct personal impression, and] the
 living heat and excitement of their own time, 
and are being marshalled for casting, or getting 
ready to be cast, into the cold and bloodless electrotype 
plates of History.
Or if we admit that the savage temper and 
wide differences of opinions and feelings of 
wrongs, and mutual recriminations,  that led to 
the Secession War and flamed in its mortal conflagration, 
may not have yet entirely burnt
themselves out, still, all will acknowledge that 
the embers of them are [already] dying embers,
and a few more winters and summers, a few 
more rains and snows, will surely quench their 
fires, and leave them only as a far off memory.
[*It has [already] by this time become
clear to thinking minds*]
[SOLID LAND APPEARING THE PEAKS OF THE
FUTURE]
[But is it not already dawning upon us] that
out of that War not only has the Nationality of
the United States escaped from being strangled,
but more than any of the rest, and, in my
opinion, more than the North itself, the vital
heart and breath of the South have escaped as
from the pressure of a general nightmare, and
are [????] to enter on a life, development, and
active freedom whose realities are certain in 
the future, notwithstanding all the Southern
vexations and humiliations of the hour; and
could not possibly have been achieved on any 
less terms or by any other means than that war
or something equivalent to it. [And I predict
that the South is yet to outstrip the North.]
[*with the first breath of 
great historic triumph
in a [within] murder and horror
unsurpassed. Abraham
Lincoln himself
passed
away forever*]

[*3*]
Already, the events of that period [1862 and 3] [1863 and '4 and ?]
[seasons that immediately preceded, as well as
those that closely followed them] have quite
lost [their direct personal impression, and] the
living heat and excitement of their own time,
and are being marshalled for casting, or getting
ready to be cast, into the cold and bloodless electrotype
plates of History. Or if we admit that the savage temper and
wide differences of opinion and feelings of
wrongs, and mutual recriminations, that led to
the Secession War and flamed in its mortal conflagration,
may not have yet entirely burnt
themselves out, still, all will acknowledge that
the embers of them are [already] dying embers,
and a few more winters and summers, a few
more rains and snows, will surely quench their
fires, and leave them only as far off memory.


[And] Then it has [already] by this time become
quite clear to thinking minds
[SOLID LAND APPEARING THE PEAKS OF THE
FUTURE]
[But is it not already dawning upon us] that
out of that War not only has the Nationality of
the United States escaped from being strangled,
but more than any of the rest, and, in my
opinion, more than the North itself, the vital
heart and breath of the South have escaped as
from the pressure of a general nightmare, and
are [?] to enter on a life, development, and
active freedom whose realities are certain in
the future, notwithstanding all the Southern
vexations and humiliations of the hour; and
could not possibly have been achieved on any
less terms or by any other means more that war
or something equivalent to it. [And I predict
that the South is yet to outstrip the North]
[with the first breath of
a great historic triumph
& [in] [with] a murder & horror
unsurpassed, Abraham Lincoln himself
passed
away forever]

4
The tragedy itself has
many years been
over—and in the peaceful, strong, 
exciting, fresh occasions of To-day, and of the Future, [that] that
strange, sad [war] play is hurrying even now to be forgotten.  The 
camp, the drill, the lines of sentries, the prisons, the hospitals, 
—(ah! the hospitals!)—all have passed away—all seem now 
like a dream.  A new race, a young and lusty generation, 
already sweeps in with oceanic currents, obliterating [that] the war, 
and all its scars, its mounded graves, and all its reminiscences 
of hatred, conflict, death. In every hateful, and malignant sense.  So let it be obliterated.  I say the 
life of the present and the future makes undeniable demands
upon us each and all, South, North, East, and West.

[To] And now to come back more
definitely to [the] my theme

My subject to you my friends this evening for [my] 40 or 50 minutes
talk [to you] [my friends] [this evening] is "the Death of Abraham
Lincoln." I [shall] am not going to tell you [nothing] anything new &
it is [nearl] mainly because I wish to reverently commemorate
this Day and [death] martyrdom and name [it nothing special]
[in any story]. I [have called you together] meet here with you *Oft as
the rolling years

[?] [Struggle]
Though by no means proposing to resume the Secession struggle,
I would briefly remind you of the public
conditions preceding that contest. For twenty years, and especially
during the four or five before the war actually began, the
aspect of affairs in the United States, thought without the flash
of military excitement, presents more than the survey of a battle,
or any extended campaign, or series, even of Natures convulsions.
The hot passions of the South--the strange mixture
at the North, of inertia, incredulity, and conscious power--the
incendiarism of Abolitionists--the rascality and grip of the
politicians, unparallelled in any land, any age. To these I must
not omit adding the honesty of the essential bulk of the people
everywhere--yet with all the seething fury and contradiction
of their natures more aroused than the Atlantic's waves in wildest
equinox.
What could be more ominous, (though generally unappreciated
then)--what more significant than the Preidentiads
of Fillmore and Buchanan? proving conclusively that the weakness
and wickedness of elected rulers, backed by our great parties,
are just as likely to afflict us here, as in the countries of the
old world. under their monarchies, emperors, and aristocracies.
In that Old World were everywhere heard underground rumblings,
that died out, only to again surely return. While in
America the volcano, though civic yet, continued to grow more
and more convulsive--more and more stormy and threatening.
In the height of all this excitement and chaos, hovering on the
edhe at first, and then merged in its very midst, and destined to
play a leading part, appears a strange and awkward figure.
I shall not easily forget the first time I ever saw Abraham
Lincoln. It must have been about the 18th or 19th of February,
1861. It was rather a pleasant afternoon. in New
York city, as he arrived there from the West, to remain a few
hours, and then pass on to Washington, to prepare for his inauguration.
I saw him in Broadway, near the site of the present
Post-office. He came down, I think from Canal street, to stop at
the Astor House. The broad spaces, sidewalks, and street in the
neighborhood, and for some distance, were crowded with solid
masses of people, many thousands. The omnibuses and other
vehicles had all been turned off, leaving an unusual hush in that

busy part of the city.  Presently two or three shabby hack barouches
made their way with some difficulty through the crowd, 
and drew up at the Astor House entrance. A tall figure step'd 
out of the centre of these barouches, paus'd leisurely on the sidewalk,
look'd up at the [dark] granite walls and looming architecture 
of the grand old hotel---then, after a relieving stretch of 
arms and legs, turn'd round for over a minute to slowly and
good-humoredly scan the appearance of the vast and silent crowds. 
There were no speeches---no compliments---no welcome---as far as
I could hear, not a word said.  Still much anxiety was concealed
in that quiet.  Cautious persons had fear'd some mark'd insult or 
indignity to the President-elect---for he possess'd no personal
popularity at all in New York city, and very little political.
But it was evidently tacitly agreed that if the few political supporters
of Mr. Lincoln present would entirely abstain from any
demonstration on their side, the immense majority, who were 
any thing but supporters, would abstain on their side also. The 
result was a sulky, unbroken silence, such as certainly never before
characterised so great a New York crowd.
    Almost in the same neighborhood I distinctly remember'd 
seeing Lafayette on his visit to America in 1825.  I had also
personally seen and heard how Andrew Jackson, Clay. Webster,
Hungarian Kossuth, Filibuster Walker, the Prince of Wales 
on his visit, and other celebres, native and foreign, had been 
welcom'd there, at various times---that indescribable human
roar and magnetism, unlike any other sound in the universe---the 
glad exulting thunder-shouts of countless unloos'd throats of 
men !  But on this occasion, not a welcoming voice---not a sound.
   From the top of an omnibus, (driven up one side, close by, 
and block'd by the curbstone and the crowds,) I had, I say, a 
capital view of it all, and especially of Mr. Lincoln, his look and
gait---his perfect composure and coolness---his unusual and uncouth 
height, his dress of complete black, stovepipe hat push'd 
back on the head, his dark-brown complexion, seam'd and wrinkled
yet canny-looking face, his black, bushy head of hair, disproportionately 
long neck, and his hands held behind as he 
stood observing the people.  He look'd with curiosity upon that 
immense sea of faces, and the sea of faces return'd the look with 
similar curiosity.  In both there was a dash of comedy, almost 
farce, such as Shakespere puts in his blackest tragedies.  The crowd
that hemm'd around consisted I should think of thirty to forty 
thousand men, not a single one his personal friend---while I 
have no doubt, (so frenzied were the ferments of the time,) many 
an assassin's knife and pistol lurked in hip or breast pocket
there, ready, soon as break and riot came.

24     THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

[Freshly through the open casements did the balmy breezes blow,
And fast the white flowery curtains were lifted to and fro,
As they wavered, on him the sun-beams glanced, each like a glowing
     gem,
And sweet 'twas to see his happy glee as he watched and caught at them.
Soon he rose and 'bout that lifeless one his little arms he flung,
Climbed on her cold snow-white breast and to her swan-like neck he
     clung;
And with pat and fond caress he smoothed her fair and palid cheeks,
Drew her shining tresses o'er that mouth which to him no longer speaks.
Press'd his lips to hers as he had done a thousand times before,
But which alas, while ages roll returns his kiss on earth no more !
And as though astonished at his mother's still and quiet mien,
Long silently he leaned o'er her, gazing in that countenance serene.
Poor little innocent !  long he gazed upon those features cold,
Gently pat those snowy cheeks, and tossed about those locks of gold
To rouse his mother from her rest, all unconscious of her doom,
That her soul had fled from him, and from all earthly blight and gloom !
"God of the tender, lone and frail !  to whom no prayer is breathed un-
     known !
May Thy kind protecting arms be aye around the orphan thrown !
Forsake him not, O, Lord !  but forever guide him on Thy way;
Nor vengeance take on him, though he should wonder widely for a day ;
For he is orphaned early ; o'er all his anguish pour relief;
Teach the little orphaned sufferer to know the joy of grief ! "
   So prayed Ulrica, as gently round that babe her arms she threw,
And with tearful eye from out the chamber of the dead withdrew.
   Swift years rolled by and the while beneath Ulrica's pious care
These twain have grown to what they now this beauteous eve appear ;
Each glorious in form, and glorious and noble each in mind,
Useful to themselves and useful to the rest of human kind.
Such are these two waifs that here we find upon the sea of time,
Clinging each to each with a love all heavenly and sublime ;
Without a thought save each others' mortal and immortal weal,
Each for the other's welfare yearning with more than earthly zeal.]


   But no break or riot came.  The tall figure gave another relieving
stretch or two of arms and legs; then with moderate pace,
and accompanied by a few unknown looking persons, ascended
the portico-steps of the Astor House, disappeared through its
broad entrance—and the dumb-show ended.
I saw Abraham Lincoln often the four [or five] years following
that date.  He changed [rapidly and] much during his Presidency
—but this scene and him in it, are indelibly stamped upon my
recollection.  As I sat on the top of my omnibus, and had a good
view of him, the thought, dim and inchoate then, has since
come out clear enough, that perhaps four sorts of genius—four mighty
and primal hands, will be needed to the complete limning of
this man's future portrait—the eyes and brains and finger-touch
of Plutarch and Eschylus and Michel Angelo, assisted by
Rabelais.

And now—(Mr. Lincoln passing on from this scene to Washington,
where he was inaugurated, amid armed cavalry, and
sharpshooters at every point—the first instance of the kind in
our history—and I hope it will be the last)—Now the rapid
succession of well-known events, [(too well known—I believe,
these days, we almost hate to hear them mentioned)]—the National
Flag fired on at Sumpter—the uprising of the North in
paroxysms of astonishment and rage—the chaos of divided
councils—the call for troops—the first Bull Run—the stunning
cast-down, shock, and dismay of unionism [the North]—And so in full
flood the Secession War.—Four years of lurid, bleeding, murky,
murderous war.  Who paint those years, with all their scenes?
—the hard-fought engagements—the defeats, plans, failures—
the gloomy hours, days, when our Nationality seem'd hung in
pall of doubt, perhaps death—the Mephistophelean sneers of
foreign lands and attachés—the dreaded Scylla of European
interference, and the Charybdis of the tremendously dangerous
latent strata of secession sympathizers throughout the Free
States, (far more numerous than is supposed,)—the long marches
in summer—the hot sweat, and many a sunstroke, as on the
rush to Gettysburg in '63—the night battles in the woods, as
under Hooker at Chancellorsville, (a strange episode)—the
camps in winter—the military prisons—the Hospitals—(alas !
alas !  the Hospitals.)
The Secession War?  Nay, let me call it the Union War.
Though whatever call'd, it is even yet too near us—too vast
and too closely overshadowing—its branches unform'd yet, (but
certain,) shooting too far into the future—and the most indicative
and mightiest of them yet ungrown.

32 THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

[Through all its frame a wailing came—tones of anguish wild and strange, 
As though the dead of ages fled back on earth once more would range! 
And at their birth the laboring earth convulsive shook with pain, 
Groaned in all her caves as from their graves, on mountain, moor and 
plain.
The thousands vast of ages past started unto life again, 
With such a roar as ne'er before shook the ether's wide domain! 
And from the Fort as swift as thought, 'round that more than human 
Chief
The armies crowd with praises loud for the hand that brought relief; 
But midst his host he silent stood as the rock whose awful form, 
Towers high o'er the rolling waters when on ocean dies the storm! 
With thought intent his vision bent, full on his retreating foe, 
For far away in fierce array, they halt and rally from the blow, 
And full soon compact in even lines their broken columns form, 
Like successive clouds that darkly rise and gather for the storm. 
From his lofty head that giant chief his flashing helm unbound, 
And straight towards me with hasty stride his ponderous footsteps wound, 
And with a voice like that my inmost soul is wont to hear, 
He raised me in his mighty arms and whispered in mine ear, 
Minona, child of grace and beauty, and more than life to me, 
Prized far beyond life and so through never ending time shall be, 
Look up, my being's idol, and in this dust and blood stained face, 
See if thy sweet sunny eyes cannot thy Moran's features trace; 
With panting breath and trembling form, I viewed those features grim, 
Through gore and dust and powder stains they seemed like thine but 
dim, 
The rain of heaven began to fall and the wind went howling by, 
I took thy helm and in it caught the falling waters of the sky, 
From off thy face the dust and gore and powder-stains I laved, 
And kiss'd the brow that but late far more than human dangers braved, 
And then me thought as I gazed on thee throughout my inmost soul 
I felt a flood of joy o'er all the sorrows of my spirit roll. 
But it was like the departing beam of the sun when his form 
Is to be hid in the rising gloom of the gathering storm,]


A great literature will yet arise out of the era of those four years, 
those scenes—Era compressing centuries of native passion, first-
class pictures, tempests of life and death---an inexhaustible mine 
for the Histories, Drama, Romance, and even Philosophy, of 
people[s] to come---indeed the Verteber of Poetry and Art, (of 
personal character too,) for all future America---[far] more grand, 
in my opinion, to the hands capable of it, than Homer's siege 
of Troy, or the French wars to Shakspere.

But I must leave these speculations, and come to the theme 
I have assigned and limited myself to.
Of the actual murder of President Lincoln, though so much 
has been written, probably the facts are yet very indefinite in 
most persons' minds. I read from my Memoranda, [already published] 
mainly written at the time, on the spot, and revised frequently 
[and finally] since.

—The day, April 14, 1865, 
seems to have been a pleasant one throughout the whole 
land—the moral atmosphere pleasant too—the long storm, 
so dark, so fratricidal, full of blood and doubt and gloom, 
over and ended at last by the sun-rise of such an absolute 
National victory, and utter break[ing]-down of the Secession[ism]—
we almost doubted our own senses! Lee had capitulated 
beneath the apple-tree of Appomattax. The other armies, 
the flanges of the revolt, swiftly follow'd.......And could 
it really be, then? Out of all the affairs of this world of 
woe and [passion, of] failure and disorder [and dismay], was 
there really come the [confirm'd,] unerring sign of plan, like 
a shaft of pure light—of rightful rule—of God?.......So the 
day, as I say, was propitious. Early herbage, early flowers, 
were out. (I remember where I was stopping at the time, 
the season being advanced, there were many lilacs in full 
bloom. By one of those caprices that enter and give tinge 
to events without being at all a part of them, I find myself 
always reminded of the great tragedy of that day by the 
sight and odor of these blossoms. It never fails.)
But I must not dwell on accessories. The deed hastens. 
The popular afternoon paper of Washington, the little 
Evening Star, had spatter'd all over its third page, divided 
among the advertisements in a sensational manner in a hundred 
different places, The President and his Lady will be at 
the Theatre this evening.......(Lincoln was fond of the theatre. 
I have myself seen him there several times. I remember 
thinking how funny it was that He, in some respects, the 
leading actor in the [greatest and] stormiest drama known to 
real history's stage, through centuries, should sit there and 
be so completely interested and absorb'd in those [uns] imaginary doings. [human 
jack-straws, moving about with their silly little gestures, 
foreign spirit, and flatulent text.)]

[40 THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

As away she flew, o'er her features a smile of glory pass'd, 
Brilliant as Borealis' flashes on snows of Lapland cast; 
Sweeter and sweeter came her songs 'till she vanished from my sight
In one unclouded, dazzling, fiery blaze of ruddy light. 
Loud from the wreck of gore and carnage a wail of anguish came, 
'Twas the voice of Death for ceaseless sorrow wrung his grisely frame; 
His groans came like the moans of bleak winds at night, that sigh and 
rave, 
Wail through a tomb of fleshless bones, all else was silent as the grave. 
For all the hosts that fought so well, now stood grimly face to face, 
Or lay on earth, each locked in an everlasting cold embrace; 
Heavy, low hung mists were thickening fast to hide the wreck of woe; 
One by one upon the sky the burning cities ceased to glow. 
A strange, sudden change came o'er my dream, I viewed a lovely scene, 
From amber clouds a setting sun shone upon the woodlands green; 
I stood hard by the bank of a stream that swept on strong and free, 
With him who in my dream, had claimed my long lost sire to be. 
With a voice all musical and sweet, and tender in its tone, 
Thus he spake to me my hand the while clasped firmly in his own; 
"Minona, like the bright leaflets on yon far off forests green, 
Each rising race of the sons of mortal, hapless men are seen, 
To the warm radiant sun awhile their shining heads they rear, 
Then blight and wane and change and die and withering disappear; 
And as the eternal rolling seasons bring each year around 
They bud and bloom unto his beams, and then dying strew the ground; 
So on earth the races of proud, aspiring man appear, 
So they bud and bloom and die, each bright alternate, rolling year. 
Yes, his mighty races rise and pass unto the silent grave, 
Like an ocean's solemn sounding shores, successive wave on wave, 
For ever rising, rolling, swelling, still onward borne and tossed 
A moment seen, and in the selfsame little moment, gone—lost! 
With all their mighty freights of sorrows, and hopes, and joys, and fears, 
Breaking, wrecking, passing to the loved and lost of other years. 
Line on line his races rise, then pass forever from the world, 
Like sounds that greet the ear, then are 'midst the unknown distance 
hurl'd,]


[DURING THE WAR. 47]

On this occasion the theatre was crowded, many ladies in 
rich and gay costumes, officers in their uniforms, many 
well known citizens, young folks, the usual clusters of gaslights,
the usual magnetism of so many people, cheerful, 
with perfumes, music of violins and flutes—(and over all, 
and saturating all, that vast vague yet realistic wonder, Victory, the 
Nation's Victory, the triumph of the Union, filling the air, 
the thought, the sense, with exhilaration more than all music and perfumes.)
The President came betimes, and, with his wife, witness'd 
the play, from the large stage-boxes of the second tier, two 
thrown onto one, and profusely draped with the National 
flag. The acts and scenes of the piece—one of those singularly 
written compositions which have at least the merit 
of giving entire relief to an audience engaged in mental action 
or business excitements and cares during the day, as it 
makes not the slightest call on either the moral, emotional, 
esthetic, or spiritual nature—a piece, ('Our American Cousin,') 
in which, among other characters, so call'd, a Yankee, certainly 
such a one as was never seen, or the least like it ever 
seen, in North America, is introduced in England, with a 
varied fol-de-rol of talk, plot, scenery, and such phantasmagoria 
as goes to make up a modern popular drama—had progress'd 
through perhaps a couple of its acts, when in the 
[the] midst of this comedy, or tragedy, or non-such, or whatever 
it is to be call'd, and to off-set it or finish it out, as if in 
Nature's and the Great Muse's mockery of those poor mimes, 
comes interpolated that Scene, not really or exactly to be 
described at all, (for on the many hundreds who were there 
it seems to this hour to have left little but a passing blur, a 
dream, a blotch)—and yet partially to be described as I now 
proceed to give it….
...There is a scene in the play representing 
a modern parlor, in which the two [unprecedented] English 
ladies are inform'd by the [unprecedented and] impossible 
Yankee that he is not a man of fortune, and therefore undesirable 
for marriage-catching purposes; after which, the comments 
being finish'd, the dramatic trio make exit, leaving 
the stage clear for a moment. [There was a pause, a hush 
as it were.] At this period came the murder of Abraham 
Lincoln. Great as that was, with all its manifold train, 
circling round it, and stretching into the future for many a 
century, in the politics, history, art, &c., of the New World, 
in point of fact the main thing, the actual murder, transpired 
with the quiet and simplicity of any commonest occurrence—
the bursting of a bud or pod in the growth of vegetation, for 
instance. Through the general hum following the stage 
pause, with the change of positions, [&c.,] came the muffled 
sound of a pistol shot, which not one hundredth part of the 
audience heard at the time—and yet a moment's hush—
somehow, surely a vague startled thrill—and then, through

[46 THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBTRG.

But why fear my return? I've through scenes of danger pass'd, 
Fierce as e'er could be, seen around the dead fall thick and fast; 
At Shiloah fell, and dread Antietam, and gory Malvern Hill, 
Yet I am safe, and I'll return again if it's God's scared will.
And if by His commands I press the reeking battle plain, 
I fall a willing sacrifice among the nation's slain; 
In peace and calm with them to rest until the Judgement hour, 
Then rise for the victor's wreath, and patriot's throne of power. 
But there I hope they'll bury me, high yon breezy down, 
Nigh to the busy din and hum of mine own favorite town; 
So thou may'st often come at eve to see the willows wave, 
And the all beauteous flowers bloom above thy warrior's grave. 
Yes, sacred to thy soul will be the spot that holds his form, 
And grasses that o'er him wave to the blasts of every storm, 
Will oft be moistened with thy tears at some calm evening time, 
And thou shalt cherish the spot with love unfading and sublime. 
When time speeds on, and another heart thy worshipper shall prove, 
And thou and him together bless'd through life as one shalt move, 
Ye will not scorn to come at times whate'er your joys or cares, 
To view the quiet spot where rests thy love of long former years." 
"Think'st thou," she with a tear replied, "I could live when thou art low? 
Think'st thou I'd forget thee, and other love or friendship know? 
Ah, no! when thou art dead a pall of woe shall wrap my soul, 
Which time can never move, that only death from it shall roll! 
See'st thou, my love, yon radiant, glittering evening star? 
Now sweetly smiling o'er those tall craggy mountain peaks afar, 
Serenely o'er the silent earth her glorious beams she throws, 
Seeming to laugh at all below, at this world's pains, joys and woes; 
As easy 'twere for man to lead it from off the path that God 
Has destined should by it throughout all eternal time be trod; 
As easy it of one atom of its sky-born light to free, 
As I to love some other one, as I have fondly cherished thee! 
There was a time when everything 'neath the sky was fair to me, 
'Twas in childhood when we roam'd beside this rolling river free, 
And gazed upon its shining face with joy, and thought the while,]


48 MEMORANDA

the ornamented, [draperied,] starr'd and striped space-way of
the President's box, a sudden figure, a man raises himself 
with hands and feet, stands a moment on the railing, leaps 
below to the stage, (a distance of perhaps fourteen or fifteen 
feet,) falls out of position, catching his boot-heel in the copious 
drapery, (the American flag,) falls on one knee, quickly 
recovers himself, rises as if nothing had happen'd, (he really 
sprains his ankle, but unfelt then,)—and so the figure, Booth, 
the murderer, dress'd in plain black broadcloth, bare-headed, 
with [a] full [head of] glossy, raven hair, and his eyes like some 
mad animal's flashing with light and resolution, yet with a 
certain [strange] calmness, holds aloft in one hand a large 
knife—walks along not much back from the footlights—
turns fully toward the audience his face of statuesque beauty, 
lit by those basilisk eyes, flashing with desperation, perhaps 
insanity—launches out in a firm and steady voice the words, 
Sic semper tyrannis—and then walks with neither slow nor 
very rapid pace diagonally across to the back of the stage, 
and disappears.......(Had not all this terrible scene—making 
the mimic ones preposterous—had it not all been a rehears'd, 
in blank, by Booth, beforehand?)
A moment's hush, [incredulous]—a scream—the cry of Murder—
Mrs. Lincoln leaning out of the box, with ashy cheeks 
and lips, with involuntary cry, pointing to the retreating 
figure, He has kill'd the President.......And still a moment's 
strange, incredulous suspense—and then the deluge!—then 
that mixture of horror, noises, uncertainty—(the sound, 
somewhere back, of a horse's hoofs clattering with speed)—
the people burst through chairs and railings, and break them 
up—[that noise adds to the queerness of the scene]—there is 
inextricable confusion and terror—women faint—quite feeble 
persons fall, and are trampled on—many cries of agony are 
heard—the broad stage suddenly fills to suffocation with a 
dense and motley crowd, like some horrible carnival—the 
audience rush generally upon it—at least the strong men 
do—the actors and actresses are all there in their play-costumes 
and painted faces, with mortal fright showing on through 
the rouge, [some trembling—some in tears—] the screams and 
calls, confused talk—redoubled, trebled—two or three manage
to pass up water from the stage to the President's box—
others try to clamber up—&c., &c., [&c.]
In the midst of all this, the soldiers of the President's 
Guard, with others, suddenly drawn to the scene, burst in—
(some two hundred altogether)—they storm the house, 
through all the tiers, especially the upper ones, inflamed 
with fury, literally charging the audience with fix'd bayonets, 
muskets and pistols, shouting Clear out! clear out! you sons of
——.......Such the wild scene, or a suggestion of it rather, 
inside the play-house that night.
Outside, too, in the atmosphere of shock and craze, crowds

DURING THE WAR. 49

of people, fill'd with frenzy, ready to seize any outlet for it, 
come near committing murder several times on innocent 
individuals. One such case was especially exciting. The 
infuriated crowd, through some chance, got started against 
one man, either for words he utter'd, or perhaps without 
any cause at all, and were proceeding at once to actually 
hang him on a neighboring lamp post, when he was rescued 
by a few heroic policemen, who placed him in their midst
and fought their way slowly and amid great peril toward the 
Station House.......It was a fitting episode of the whole 
affair. and I give it to you, indeed, as a sample: drop of 
the surrounding ocean. The crowd rushing and eddying to and fro—the 
night, the yells, the pale faces, many frighten'd people trying 
in vain to extricate themselves—the attack'd man, not 
yet freed from the jaws of death, looking like a corpse—the 
silent resolute half-dozen policemen, with no weapons but 
their little clubs, yet stern and steady through all those eddying 
swarms—made this [indeed a fitting] side-scene to the 
grand tragedy of the murder.......They gain'd the Station 
House with the protected man, whom they placed in security 
for the night, and discharged him in the morning.
And in the midst of all that [night] pandemonium, [of senseless 
hate,] infuriated soldiers, the audience and the crowd—the 
stage, and all its actors and actresses, its paint-pots, spangles, 
and gas-lights—the life-blood from those veins, the best 
and sweetest of the land, drips slowly down, and death's 
ooze already begins its little bubbles on the lips.......Such, 
hurriedly sketch'd, were the accompaniments of the death of 
President Lincoln. So suddenly and in murder and horror unsurpass'd 
he was taken from us. [But his death was painless.]

Thus the visible incidents and surroundings of President Lincoln's 
murder, as they really occur'd. Thus ended the Attempted 
Secession of These States. Thus the four years' war. 
But the main things come subtly and invisibly afterward, perhaps 
long afterward— neither military, political, nor (great as 
those are) historical. I say, certain secondary and indirect 
results, out of [the war, and out of the tragedy of] this Death, 
are, in my opinion, greatest. Not the event of the murder 
itself. Not that Mr. Lincoln str[i]ung[s] the principal points and 
personages of the period, like beads, upon the single string of 
his career. Not that his idiosyncracy, in its sudden appearance 
and disappearance, stamps this Republic with a stamp more 
mark'd and enduring than any yet given by any one man—
(more even than Washington's;)—But, join'd with these, the 
immeasurable value and meaning of that whole tragedy lies, 
to me, in senses finally dearest to a Nation, (and here all 
our own)----the permeating imaginative and the artistic senses----the literary 
and the dramatic ones. Not in any common or low meaning 
of those terms, but a meaning precious to the race, and to every 
age. A long and varied series of contradictory events arrives

All [all] serves the true spirit, the true development of America. Life serves, and
death also - even the death of the
sweetest and wisest. Crumbled and
wordless now lie his remains long buried there
in his [grave in the prairies—] prairie grave—aside
from cities, and all the din of 
wealth:making and politics and all
contention and doubt. The storm
is long over. The battle, the anguish, 
the uncertainty whom to trust,
the slur, are over. The envenom'd  bullets
and the sting of many a traitor's
tongue and pen, are over. With the first
breath of a great historic triumph,
and in murder and horror unsurpassed
Abraham Lincoln died. But
not only the [lesson] values he gave the
New World in life survives for
ever, but the [lesson] [incidentible?] value of his
death survives forever.


at last at its highest poetic, single, central, pictorial denouement. 
The whole involved, baffling, multiform whirl of the Secession
period comes to a head, and is gather'd in one brief flash of lightning-illumination—
one simple, fierce deed. Its sharp culmination,
and as it were solution, of so many bloody and angry
problems, illustrates those climax-moments on the stage of universal
Time, where the Historic Muse at one entrance, and the 
Tragic Muse at the other, suddenly ringing down the curtain,
close an immense act in the long drama of creative thought, and 
give it radiation, tableau, stranger than fiction. Fit radiation— 
fit close! How the imagination—how the student loves these
things! America, too, is to have them. For not in all great
deaths, [nor far or near—] not Caesar in the Roman Senate-house, 
or Napoleon passing away in the wild night-storm at St. Helena—
Not Paleolagus, falling, desperately fighting, piled over
dozens deep with Grecian corpses—Not calm old Socrates, 
drinking the hemlock—outvies that terminus of the Secession
War, in one man's life, here in our midst, in our own time— 
that seal of the emancipation of three million slaves----that parturition
and delivery of our [newborn,] at last really free Republic,
henceforth to commence its career of genuine homogeneous
Union, compact, born again, [untied,] consistent with itself.
   Nor will ever future American Patriots and Unionists, indifferently
over the whole land, or North or South. find a better
seal to their lesson [?] on the word. The final use of the greatest men of a 
Nation is [after all,] not with reference to their deeds in themselves,
or their direct bearing on their times or lands. The 
final use of a heroic-eminent life—[especially of a heroic eminent
death—] is its indirect filtering into the nation and the
race, and to give, often at many removes, but unerringly, [age
after age,] color and fibre to the Personalism of the youth and
maturity of that age, and all ages [and] of mankind. Then there is a cement
to the whole People, subtler, more underlying, than any
thing in written Constitution, or courts or armies—namely,
the cement of a first-class tragic incident [death] thoroughly identified with that People, 
at its head, and for its sake. Strange, (is it not?) that battles, 
martyrs, [agonies,]  blood, even assassination, should so condense— 
perhaps only really, lastingly condense—a Nationality.
   I repeat it—the grand deaths of the race—the dramatic
deaths of every Nationality—are its most important inheritance-value—
in some respects, beyond its literature and art—(as the
hero is beyond his finest portrait, and the battle itself beyond
its choicest song or epic.) Is not here indeed the point underlying
all tragedy? the famous pieces of the Grecian Masters—
and all Masters? Why, if the old Greeks had had this

[64                             THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

Such was her mother, aye, beautiful ‘midst pleasure or despair!
Thank God for this ! for this to Him have I prayed both night and day,
Yet to my constant pain and anguish has He kept my child away,
Till I]


[Her brow fairer far than Northern snows when nights are cold and long,
Her footsteps lighter than the dews or softest tones of sweetest song.]


man, what trilogies of plays—what epics—would have been
made out of him! How the rhapsodes would have recited him!
How quickly that quaint tall form would have entered into the
region where men vitalize gods, and gods divinify men! But
Lincoln, his times, his death—great emotion and [passionate] eventful as any, any age—belong
altogether to our own, and are autochthonic. Sometimes indeed 
I think our American days, our own stage—the actors we know
and have shaken hands, or talk’d with—more fateful than any
thing in Eschylus—more heroic than the fighters around Troy:
afford kings of men [(at least for our Democracy)] prouder than
Agamemnon—models of character cute and hardy as Ulysses—
deaths more pitiful than Priam’s—Afford too, as all history for
future use is resolv’d into persons, central figures, illustrators,
in whom our whirling periods shall concentrate—the best future
Art and Poetry find themes—and all around which the whole companies of
[age] time shall turn. [*#*]

   Thus my friends I draw to a finish the
 duty I spoke of, and to which I have invited you—turning aside 
a moment from all our business
and pleasure—from the rush of streets 
and crowds and din and talk—to
[to] give a [reverential] commemorative moment.
This twenty [second] fifth anniversary to the dead
President—and in his name, and truly radiating his spirit
to all the dead soldiers of the 
war—all indeed all— I feel myself 
to say, to faithfully fervently invested, or lost or won,
or South, or North.

   When, centuries hence, (as it must, in my opinion, be centuries
hence before the Life of These States, or of Democracy, can be
really written and illustrated,) the [leading] historians and dramatists 
seek for some [personage, some] special event, incisive 
enough to mark with deepest cut, and mnemonize, this turbulent 
Nineteenth Century of ours, (not only These States but all over
the political and social world)—something, perhaps, to close that 
gorgeous procession of European Feudalism, with all its pomp
and caste-prejudices, (of whose long train we in America are yet
so inextricably the heirs)—Something to identify with terrible
identification, by far the greatest revolutionary step in the history 
of The United States, (perhaps the greatest of the world, 
our century)—the absolute extirpation and erasure of Slavery,
the last general underpinning and lingering result of feudalism
from The States—those historians will seek in vain for any 
point to serve more thoroughly their purpose, than Abraham
Lincoln’s death.

   Dear to the Muse—thrice dear to Nationality—to the whole
human race—Precious to this Union—precious to Democracy—
unspeakably and forever precious—their first great Martyr
Chief.

[70 THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

England's bold red-clad sons advanced with thundering shouts and cheers, 
We saw the foeman heeded not the fiery, fatal spray, 
Of shot and shell our cannon poured,though it swept whole ranks away, 
Though they fell like grain 'neath reapers whene'er our guns would sound, 
Yet fresh columns hemmed us in, fresh armies thronged the gory ground; 
So we charged upon them with a shout that through them sent dismay, 
And hand to hand with spear and brand we hewed our dreadful way. 
Although it was my first red fight, and I but a stripling then, 
Few were the swords, I ween, that flashed in the hands of bearded men, 
That cleared a broader path than mine, right and left I cleft my way, 
With blow and thrust in gory dust full many a Hindoo lay. 
We fought till earth with Brama's sons was covered o'er and grim'—
Though his children may be false to men they're ever true to him. 
He is their God of battles, and when they tread on fighting field, 
For his sake alone to no power but grisly death they yield. 
And as we trod upon the wounded that lay among the slain, 
Though they were weak and torn and bleeding, and full of ghastly pain, 
Yet full of stern rage and hate for us up from the earth they'd rear, 
Fearless grasp us with their dying grip and strive to bite and tear. 
We fought with our swords till the sun went down and night closed round, 
And far and wide o'er the gory earth no breathing foe we found; 
Then we paused for a breathing space and rested our swords, 
Sought for our friends who slaughtered lay among the vanquished hordes 
And these, alas! were many, whose battle day not more should beam, 
Who slept the silent sleep of death, the grim sleep without a dream. 
Ah! four of Ulrica's sons no longer drew a vital breath, 
Next morn we laid them in the grave—the dark, voiceless home of death: 
With tearful eye and saddened brow from the reeking field of gore, 
To the cold gloomy tomb, we many a much loved comrade bore; 
Many a head was bowed with grief, and many an eye was dim, 
As o'er the buried comrades' graves we sang the funeral hymn. 
Oh, there are moments when the gush of feeling will have its way, 
And the hidden tide of love or woe no force on earth can stay! 
Oft a tear I shed for them; methinks their voices still I hear, 
Their shadows yet linger by my side, their death wail and their bier!"]


THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR.

"WHOSE steps are those? Who comes so late?"
"Let me come in--the door unlock."
"'Tis midnight now--my lonely gate,
I open to no stranger's knock.
 
"Who art though ? speak !"-- "[Men call me] In me find FAME;
To immortality I lead."
"Pass, idle phantom of a name,"
"Listen again--and now take heed.

"'Twas false—my names are SONG, LOVE, ART;
My poet, now unbar the door."
"Art's dead—Song cannot touch my heart,
My once love's name I chant no more."

"Open then, now--for see, I stand,
RICHES my name, with endless gold,
Gold, and your wish in either hand."
"Too late--my youth you still withhold."

 "Then if it must be, since the door
Stands shut, my last true name to know,
Men call me DEATH.  Delay no more;
I bring the cure of every woe."

The door flies wide.  "Ah guest so wan,
Forgive the poor place where I dwell,
An ice-cold hearth, a heart-sick man,
Stand here to welcome thee full well."

[114              THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.
 
The exit whence such a beast could go, through it I could also crowd. 
Then down the stairs I went, clinging close unto the damp cold wall,
The thoroughfare I found, and sidewise through it began to crawl ;
That small passage through which I squeezed my form was ten whole 
feet in length,
And when I gained the end torn were my hands and wasted was my 
strength..
As I stood once more in open air I felt my spirit bound !
All my wasted strength returned soon as I trod the frozen ground.
The icy wind was blowing free, sleet and rain were falling fast,
And with anxious heart my eyes on the outer prison wall I cast. 
Soon against that wall a log I raised, 'twas massy, rough and long ;
Enough for a dozen men to lift, though the strongest of the strong ;
Which only proves what mighty power lies latent in a man,
And how much he can really do if he'll only fancy that he can.
But just as I began to climb its sleety, rough and knotty frame, 
Full on me with a surley growl the grim burly mastiffs came.
It chanced while I strove at the strong gate where egress was denied,
The brute that had kept sentry there I had from the rail untied ;
Soon by the hinder legs I had the burly beast within my thrall,
And swift I smeared his reeking brain and gore upon the sleety wall,
And for my toil a priceless trophy won, full twenty feet of rope,
Then up the log I went with brain and bosom wild with hope.
It was not long, I trow, before I had scaled the hated wall,
And by the aid of the same cord had been saved a grisly fall,
For round the log I tied it and to the ground slowly down I went,
Then with one strong hurl back o'er the wall the cord from sight I sent,
Least any keen passer by might see it dangling from the wall,
And rouse the village with the tidings some one had burst from thrall.
'Tis strange, indeed, how things work round, but that rope was the very 
cord 
They'd bought to hang me with, when doomed was I to death abhorred.
Cold, cold blew the icy winds, the sleet and hail were falling fast.
As towards my home with throbbing heart, through the village street I 
pass'd]


[MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.       41

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

1
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done ;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought 
is won ;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and 
daring :
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

2
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells ;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle 
trills ;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the 
shores a-crowding ;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces 
turning ;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head ;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

3
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still ;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed 
and done ;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object 
won :
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead.

42 MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
HUSH'D BE THE CAMPS TO-DAY.
(May 4, 1865.)
1
HUSH'D be the camps to day ; 
And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons ; 
And each with musing soul retire, to celebrate, 
Our dear commander's death.
2 No more for him life's stormy conflicts ; 
Nor victory, nor defeat—no more time's dark events, 
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.
2
3 But sing, poet, in our name ; 
Sing of the love we bore him—because you, dweller in 
camps, know it truly.
4 As they invault the coffin there ; 
Sing—as they close the doors of earth upon him—
one verse,
For the heavy hearts of soldiers.
THIS DUST WAS ONCE THE MAN.
THIS dust was once the Man, 
Gentle, plain, just and resolute—under whose cautious 
hand, 
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land 
or age, 
Was saved the Union of These States.


THE WHALE CHASE.
1
O TO make the most jubilant poem !
O for the dropping of rain-drops in a poem !
O for the sunshine, and motion of waves in a  poem.
2
O for the engineer's joys !
To go with a locomotive !
To hear the hiss of steam—the merry shriek— the
steam-whistle— the laughing locomotive ! 
To push with resistless way, and speed off in the distance.
3
O for the farmer's joys!
Ohioan's, [Illinoisian's.]  Wisconsinese', Kanadian's, Iowan's,
[Kansian's,] Missourian's, Oregonese' joys;
To rise at peep of day, and pass forth nimbly to work,
To plow land in the fall for winter-sown crops,
To plough land in the spring for maize,
To train orchards—to graft trees—to gather apples 
in the fall.
4
O for the whaleman's joys ! O I cruise my old cruise 
again !
I feel the ship's motion under me—I feel the Atlantic
breezes fanning me,
I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head—
There—she blows !
--Again I spring up the rigging, to look with the rest
--We see—we decend, wild with excitement ; 
I leap in the lower'd boat--we row toward our prey, 
[*#*] where he lies ;
We approach, stealthy and silent—I see the mountainous
mass, lethargic, basking,

[90                         THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBTRG.

Now, father, I did just as I was told unto the orphan boy, 
I always strove to keep his spirit full of unclouded joy ; 
I roam'd with him upon the hills, sat beside him in the school, 
Prayed with him in church, and always equal shared with him at Yule. 
And whene'er he wept I kissed the scalding teardrops from his eyes, 
And laughed at him, till in them I made a flood of rapture rise. 
Soon I grew to love him with a friendship rooted, fix'd and strong, 
And it has stronger grown as the tide of years has flowed along. 
Loved, not because he was an orphan left in this world of dole, 
But I grew to love him for the noble candor of his soul ;
I grew to love him because I saw he fondly loved me too, 
And love enthralled our hearts ere either soul knew how to woo. 
Our love was like the coral isle fresh from the ocean's floor, 
By each ripple it is dinted, and a soft wave can smoothe it o'er, 
But soon its substance hardeneth by the sun, and storms that scowl and 
roar, 
Till feebly the billows bound against its adamantine shore. 
All the partings and griefs we have had to suffer and to bear 
Have perfect made our love as it has firmer grown each year ; 
And, father, as his wife, I would share that orphan's joy or woe, 
And wilt thou not bless us, father, by saying it may be so?" 
Just as she ceased, from the parted clouds upon Ulrica's floor, 
The setting sun poured in a flood of glory through the open door, 
As though to fill the room with splendor ere that day's course was run, 
And silent the old man stood and gazed upon the setting sun. 
His soul was full of by-gone years full of the days of the past ; 
So the sun in the west appears when clouds from his beams are cast ; 
The green hills lift their dewy heads, the bright leaves wave to and fro ; 
The blue winding streams rejoice in the flowery vales below 
Where is mirrored in all its glory the sweet radiant form 
Of heaven's bow, that spans the east, smiling through tears of the storm. 
The aged sire leaned o'er his child wrapt in a pleasing dream ; 
And his long gray hairs glittered in the rays of the setting beam. 
His whole spirit, reflective, was a flowery sunlit maze, 
Devious from joy to joy incessant strayed of other days, 
When his morn of life was new, and those dear ones who caused my birth]


[I see the harpooneer standing up—I see the weapon
dart from his vigorous arm : 
O swift, again, now, far out in the ocean, the wounded
whale, settling, running to windward, tows me ;
--Again I see him rise to breathe--We row close 
again,
I see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep,
turn'd in the wound,
Again we back off--I see him settle again—the life is
leaving him fast,
As he rises, he spouts blood----I see him swim in circles
narrower and narrower, swiftly cutting the water
----I see him die ; 
He gives one convulsive leap in the center of the circle,
and then falls flat and still in the bloody foam.]

[94                                 THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBTRG. 
Sudden upon my path there loomed a towering human form,
Who towards me bounded with a growl loud as thunder of the storm;
Oft on such a cliff I’ve met the lion bounding from his lair,
While his deep, long roar shook far and wide the stagnant midnight air.
So I was not daunted then, scarce a moment had I on it stared
Than a sudden flash of sulphureous flame before me glared;
‘Twas scarce a dozen yards from me that sudden flash of fire flared;
Close beside my ear a bullet hiss’d and loud a rifle blared.
By instinct swift as light I knew the form and features of my foe,
His shaggy brows waved dark above his eye-ball’s fiery glow;
As darts the eagle on its prey when urged by long hunger grim,
Or as springs the panther forth, so with a bound I closed on him.
We stood upon the lofty crag, face to face, breath meeting breath,
One careless step, or crumbling rock, had straight hurled us down to 
death;
He loosed his hold, his hand wandered to his side, and from its sheath
I saw his cold shining dagger gleam my very beard beneath. 
Once, twice, thrice, I felt him drive its thirsty blade against my breast,
But tighter, tighter round his form, my sinewy arms I pressed.
I heard his deep muttered curse as on his face my eyes I cast, 
His shaggy brows waved black o’er coals of rage; that look, it was my 
last.
There was a moment’s struggle, though it then seemed an age in length,
And to the gulf below I hurled him with more than human strength: 
Yea, there was a moment’s struggle, a grim howl, a fall, a yell,
And down the craggy rocks he plunged, with eye-balls flashing flames 
of hell.
Then, an awful silence reigned o’er all the hills around,
Save the rustling of the aspen leaves, I heard no other sound;
O’er the dread precipice I leaned, and in its dense darkness peer’d,
But not one sole sound or sight, my ear or vision chilled or cheer’d.
From the cliff I tore a rock, ‘twas craggy, weighty, huge and vast,
And bending to the throw, I through the gloom the mass enormous cast;
I heard it hiss through air, splash with thunder in the tarn below; 
On a wood-clad hill I heard a stir, but thought it a startled roe.] 

THE SINGER IN THE PRISON.
Anecdote of Parepa Rosa.
THE sun was low in the west one winter day,
When down a narrow aisle, amid the t[e]hieves and outlaws [*h/*]
of the land,
(There by the hundreds seated, [scar-faced murderers, 
wily counterfeiters,]
Gather’d to Sunday church in prison walls—the keepers 
round,
Plenteous, well-arm’d, watching, with vigilant eyes,)
[All that dark, cankerous blotch, a nation’s criminal mass,]
Calmly a Lady walk’d, holding a little innocent child 
by either hand. 
Whom, seating on their stools beside her on the platform,
She, first preluding with the instrument, a low and musical
prelude, 
In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn.
THE HYMN.
A Soul, confined by bars and bands, 
Cries, Help! O help! and wrings her hands;
Blinded her eyes—bleeding her breast,
Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest.
O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought—a convict Soul!
[Ceaseless, she paces to and fro,
O heart-sick days! O nights of wo!
Nor hand of friend, nor loving face;
Nor favor comes, nor word of grace,
O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!
O pardon me, a heapless Soul!]
It was not I that sinn’d the sin,
The ruthless Body dragg’d me in;
Though long I strove courageously,
The Body was too much for me.
O Life! no life, but bitter dole!
O burning, beaten, baffled Soul!

[100   THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

Yet, to save me, on the bier another one untimely lay;
Truly, God performs his wonders in a mysterious way.
Time flew past on lightning wings, and brighter grew my web of life,
In the woof a golden strand was run for sweet Mora was my wife:
As time flew, to make my store of joy complete a little angel came,
This Mora called "Minona," in memory of her mother's name.
But man is born to misery, sorrows journey on his way,
He fleeth as a shadow, and ne'er abideth in one stay.
God turneth man to destruction, as a flame reeds of the fen,
Yet, yet once more He says, "come again, ye children of men."
For a thousand years are but as yesterday within His sight,
Seeing that it has passed away as a watch in the flying night,
As soon as He scattereth them, they are even as a sleep,
And fade away suddenly like the grass on the burning steep:
In the morning it is green, groweth, and flourisheth in its pride,
But in the evening it is cut down, trodden, withered, and dried.
Yea, we waste away in His anger as chaff before the flame,
And we are afraid at His wrathful indignation and blame.
God has set our misdeeds before Him there rooted them fast,
All our secret sins in the light of His countenance cast;
For when He is angry, all our days to a close are rolled,
We bring our years to an end as it were a tale that is told.
Yea, when He chasteneth man for sin, He maketh his strength decay,
Even as it were a moth consuming a garment away.
We are all strangers with God, a stranger is every one here.
Poor wanderers and sojourners as all our fathers were.
Oh, that God would let us know our end, our term of days,
So we might turn our hearts to Him and ever keep His ways;
For surely if we were certified how long we had to live,
Our souls would turn to God, and all their thoughts to Him would give!
Thus my mind revolved as on one rainy melancholy morn,
I saw my Mora's sire unto the cold, cold grave yard borne,
Yes, he had past from earth away unto those blest realms afar,
Where souls with souls together dwell, and naught their sweet peace can
mar.]


(Dear prison'd Soul, hear up a space.
For soon or late the certain grace;
To set thee free, and bear thee home,
The Heavenly Pardoner, Death shall come.

Convict no more--nor shame, nor dole!
Depart! a God-enfranchis'd Soul!)

The singer ceas'd;
One glance swept from her clear, calm eyes, o'er all those
up-turn'd faces;
Strange sea of prison faces--a thousand varied, crafty,
brutal, seam'd and beauteous faces;
Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between
them,
While her gown touch'd them, rustling in the silence,
She vanish'd with her children in the dusk.

While upon all, convicts and armed keepers, ere they
stirr'd,
(Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)
A hush and pause fell down, a wondrous minute,
With deep, half-stifled sobs, and sound of bad men bow'd,
and moved to weeping,
And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home,
The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy
childhood,
The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence;
---A wondrous minute then---But after, in the solitary
night, to many, many there,
Years after---even in the hour of death---the sad refrain
---the tune, the voice, the words,
Resumed---the large, calm Lady walks the narrow aisle,
The wailing melody again---the singer in the prison
sings:

O sight of shame, and pain and dole!
O fearful thought---a convict Soul!

[108    THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

Where parting, doubt, pain and grief perplex and rack the soul no more;
Serene in immortality in heaven's eternal day,
So grieve thou not for her, for God gave, and God has ta'en away."
Had the first dread blast of the Creator's Judgment Trumpet blared,
And all creation's funeral flame that instant round me flared,
And from sepulcher and shroud burst all the ages' buried dead,
I had not been so shocked, as when I the startling tidings read.
First in icy fetters seemed the current of my spirit bound
And every, every thought and feeling in its frozen waters drowned,
But soon the bondage burst; grief swelled up in me beyond control,
And thought with thought together fought down the current of my soul.
Yea, my soul was like a glacier on some volcanic fell,
When all at once the wand of frost is rent, winter breaks its spell,
And far below sends ice and snow clashing on its torrents strong,
Forever clashing, warring, bickering, as hurled and dashed along.
Broken hearted, dumb with grief, crashed to earth, I seemed like one of 
those,
Who've seen the sudden torrent rise and o'er home and kindred close;
Who yet lingers near the margin of the still increasing flood---
Till lips and eye all motion lose, and grief like frost congeals the blood;
All my joys and bliss were gone, ruined, root, bole, leaf and stem,
And every hope of by-gone years scattered to the storms with them!
Hopes and joys were shaken from my soul as dewdrops from the tree,
When riseth the early morning storm and shakes its branches free.
Left me like some lone oak blasted by the lightning's ruddy glow,
The roar of the whirlwind came by night, and laid its green head low;
Mouldering it bends o'er the mountain's flood, never more to grow,
Blasts have lopped away its branches and tossed them on the torrent's
flow.
Yes, my Mora she had died, bowed down by all consuming woe,
That rushed upon her pure young heart like the avalanche of rock and
snow,
And glaciers mountains in summer time o'er rosy valleys throw,
Turning all to desolation, a drear devastated show;
Where no more shall rose or lily bloom or balmy zephyrs blow,]


THE PASSIONS.

1
WHEN MUSIC, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell---
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,---
Poss ss'd beyong the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind,
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined:
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart,
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each--for MADNESS ruled the hour---
Would prove his own expressive power.

2
First FEAR, his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid;
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made--
Next ANGER rushed--his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept, with hurried hands, the strings--

With woful measures, wan DESPAIR--
Low sullen sounds!--his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air;
'Twas sad, by fits--by starts, 'twas wild.

3
But thou, O HOPE! with eyes so fair--
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong;

[118     THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

But found thee gone, for here's thy pardon, gladly do I give it thee."
He ceased, huge drops were on his cheeks; I thought them flakes of 
melted snow.
But when I saw his eyes, they were full of tears of mingled joy and woe.
A tremor which he strove to curb, through his heaving bosom ran,
And with a choking, hoarse and heavy voice, he thus again began:
"God has placed us in this world for one another's weal or woe,
And kindness unto my fellow-man, I've ever strove to show;
From my childhood up, since first the right from wrong has Colgan
known,
And I ne'er had touched this wretch's tomb, had he left my love alone.
Yesterday I was appointed keeper of the jail, and this morn
I replaced the heavy flags which thou had from their places torn;
And hid all traces of thy flight, e'en from the wall the log I rolled;
How thou fled tell non, for I swear by me it shall ne'er be told.
Thy pardon should have sooner come, for thy wrongs were plainly
proved;
But those who have power to grant them are seldom to swift action
moved,
Unless some of their cherished kin chance to pine in prison thrall,
Or unless they see a goodly pile of gold within their coffers fall.
But for those who act so tardy for another creatures weal,
The day may come when from God they'll as anxious for a pardon feel.
Now, I must to the prison go; all within its walls, save Flynn, I swear,
Shall a merry Christmas have---and every choicest kind of cheer."
How fondly we mortals linger o'er the dead scenes of the past,
As mid scenes of the now they troop from realms of memory fast;
Many, many of them bridge the past and the present with tears,
Wrung from the heart by suffering, sorrow and numberless cares;
And many a bright and beautiful rainbow of joy and ecstacy rife,
Spans the wide gulf that parts the dawn from the closing day of life;
The heart thou wrung by the loss of the loved, and saddened by care
And by neglect and ingratitude made lone, wretched and sear,
Becomes stronger, nobler, grander, by the purifying blast
Or the trying fiery ordeal through which it has passed---


And, from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on ECHO still, through all her song,
And where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close;
And HOPE, enchanted, smiled, and waved her 
golden hair.

4
And longer had she sung---but, with a frown,
REVENGE impatient rose.
He threw his sword in thunder down;
And, with a withering look,
The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woes;
And ever and anon, he beat
The doubling drum with furious heat;
And though, sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected PITY, at his side,
Her soul-subduing voice applied,
Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien;
While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting
from his head.

5
Thy numbers, JEALOUSY, to naught were fixed---
Sad proof of thy distressful state!
Of differing themes the veering song was mixed:
And now it courted LOVE---now, raving, called on
HATE.---
With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale MELANCHOLY sat retired;
And, from her wild, sequested seat,
In notes, by distance made more sweet,
Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul;
And, dashing soft from rocks around,
Bubbling runnels joined the sound;
Through glades and glooms the mingled measure
stole;
Or, o'er some haunted streams, with fond delay,—
Round a holy calm diffusing,
Love of peace, and lonely musing,—
In hollow murmurs died away.

122                         THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.   
You well may fancy my surprise when I fixed my eyes on you.
So I bore you to my vessel and tended you with mine own hand
My ship, I say, for ‘tis three years that I’ve o’er it held command.
So rest content with me, old friend, and right happy we shall be,
For there’s not one in all the world priz’d half so much as you by me.
You and I can yet be happy, if the past we’ll bury deep.”
What else he said I know not, for while he spoke I sank to sleep.
Bright was the day and fresh the breeze, seas were sparkling to the sun,
Far to the right, o’er waters bright England’s shores loomed vast and 
dun;
And with a torn and aching soul, and with a feverish brow,
I o’er the rippling ocean gazed from that vessel’s sable prow.
A drifting reed I saw borne upon the ocean’s heaving breast;
It caught upon the prow, and with the wavelets rocked in wild unrest.
At last, with the waters down it went from sight in the floods sublime,
And while I thought how I resembled it upon the sea of time,
In a low tone the voice of Guy Colgan broke upon mine ear:
“Ralph, there’s something I’ve long wished to tell you, which you now 
must hear.
On that frosty wintry day, when all the village folk and I 
Searched the hills for the wretch who made Laura broken hearted die, 
I spied him in the crevice of a rock, securely hid away;
So I severed from the multitude, and, unseen, climbed to where he lay.
Oh, how he begged for mercy! I seized the cruel wretch’s form—
His piteous shrieks, thank God, were drown’d by the raging storm: 
To a tall cliff that frown’d o’er a rocky vale the trembling fiend I bore—
I knew the multitude had not yet searched its rocks and windings o’er;
But that it soon would throng that way, there I meant the wretch to 
throw,
And, whirling him round and round, I hurled him to the rocks below. 
Right well I knew he would be a mangled, pulseless corse, when found,
And none save God the dead had seen; so with content my heart was 
crown’d.
When the many seekers found him, their excitement was so great,
None one moment thought by mortal hand he’d met his grisly fate.




                                                         6
But, oh! how altered was its sprightlier tone,
When CHEERFULNESS, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulder flung,
Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,
Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,
The hunter’s call, to Faun and Dryad known!
The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed 
queen,
Satyrs, and sylvan boys, were seen,
Peeping from forth their alleys green:
Brown EXERCISE rejoiced to hear;
And Sport leaped up, and seized his beechen spear.
                                                        7

Last came JOY’S ecstatic trial:—
He, with viny crown, advancing, 
First to the lively pipe his hand addressed;
But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought, who heard the strain, 
They saw in Tempe’s vale her native maids,
Amid the festal-sounding shades,
To some unwearied minstrel dancing;
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
LOVE framed with MIRTH a gay fantastic round—
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound—
And he, amid his frolic play,
As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

[126     THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

His trophies of that battle-day----and fast oozed out the vital gore.
Senseless to surrounding things he lay, but, from his murmurs low,
'Twas plain his soul was active still 'midst alternate joy and woe.
Sing, Laura, sing, he murmurs----sing, for thy voice I love to hear :
'Tis sweet as the gale of the spring that sighs on the hunter's ear,
When he starts from dreams of joy and beholds the blushing morn,
And sees the fat roes peeping o'er dewy leaves of the waving thorn :----
Sing !----thy voice is sweet as the memory of joys of the past,
When pleasant and sad in the soul their hallowed shadows are cast !
Sing----sing, love !  for the star of eve o'er the shaggy hill appears !----
Sing !----sing, ere yon rising storm shall bathe its tender light in tears !
Oh Laura !  how dark it grows !----will the morning never arise?
Yea, now it is coming !  See, Laura, how it colors the skies !
Laura !  Laura !  O God !----art thou dead ? Oh, how pale is thy brow !
Ho !----yonder thy murderer is !  Aha !  I've captured him now !
Down !----down, fiend, to yon rock !  Ha !  Mercy ?  There's none for
     thee here !
Now shred him for the dogs !  God !  give me his cursed soul to tear !
Now, Laura !  Laura !  I come !"  With that, dying Colgan raised his head
And propped it on his hand ;----but at that instant his spirit fled.
With eyes wide open, fixed, and glaring, it was a sight most dread
To see that scarr'd dead man near upright sitting on that gory bed !
How time has sped away since those scenes of horror and blood,
And I've gone down the stream of time like reed upon a mountain flood,
And years have robbed me of my friends----for grim Death has ta'en
     them all----
Yea, all I knew when life was young, one by one I've seen them fall !
All are gone, my friends and foemen all ;  and I my foes forgive,
Though I hated them while here on earth God deigned to let them live :
I forgive ;----man can't reach his maker with soul all full of hate
Against some poor fellow-worm, which God did for some good create.
Yes, I have outlived them all, and been to view each silent grave----
Seen flowers above them bloom and long green grass above them wave.
And now I stand alone, as some gray cloud on a shaggy hill
That the coming storm shall bear away and scatter at its will.]


[FROM ANACREON.]
THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR.
T'[was]is noon of night, when round the Pole,
The sullen Bear is seen to roll,
And mortals wearied with the day,
Are slumbering all their cares away ;
An infant, at that dreary hour,
C[ame]omes weeping to my silent bower,
And wake[d]s me with a piteous prayer
To save him from the chill wet air.

"And who art thou," I, starting, cry,
"That mak'st my blissful dreams to fly?"

"O gentle sir," [the young one said,
"In pity take me in thy shed ;
Nor fear deceit]----A lonely child,
[Faint, lost, I wander o'er] The young one 
says, "I walk the wild,
Numb with the rain, while not a ray
Illumes the drear and unknown way."

I hear the baby's tale of woe,
While sharp the bitter night-winds blow,
And eager to relieve his fate
Trimming my lamp, I ope the gate.

[*?*] 'T[was]is Love----the little mystic sprite !
His pinions sparkle through the night !
I know him by his bow and dart ;
I know him by my fluttering heart ;
I take him in, and quickly raise
The smouldering embers' cheery blaze,
Press from his dank, his clotted hair,
The crystals of the freezing hair,
And to my inner body hold
His little fingers stiff and cold.

[THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

PART III.

Up the bright horizon the glorious sun in splendor springs,
And warm and sweet o'er floating cloud, o'er hill and vale, his beauty
      flings.
Oh ! breathes there on earth a wretch with feeling all so cold and dead
Who ne'er paused to watch the bright sun rising from off his glowing bed ?
As o'er the whole creation his warm, mellowing brightness flows,
And earth with thousand glories not its own all resplendent glows,
Is there one through whose breast no thought of thanks to the Creator
     ran
For having made so grand a thing to adorn the home of man ?
Majestic as a god, the sun issues from his blazing halls ;
His yellow flood of glory full on the murky cloudland falls,
Robing those that have slumbered all night on some high peak afar
With a thousand hues, sends them off rejoicing on their airy car,
Like men who late were sad, who go smiling on their way, free of dole,
Ever thankful to the Generous One, who moved anguish from their
     soul;
And as the brightness of the sun increases all earth below,
Its whole wide bosom with teeming joy and rapture seems to glow.
All things on its surface wake as though from death to life-like bloom,
With renovated beauty rise, as it were, from out the tomb.
The forests that skirt the mountain sides, wet with the dews of night,
The rocks that rise in silent grandeur far above with towering height,]


Till but awhile, rosy and warm,
Supple and soft, leaving my arm,
"I pray thee" said the cunning child,
(My bosom trembled as he smiled,)
"I pray thee, let me try my bow ;
For thro' the rain I've wander'd so,
That much I fear the pouring shower
Has injur'd its elastic power."

I gave assent.  The bow he drew,
Swift from the string the arrow flew,
Ah----aim'd at me like glancing flame,
Right to my very soul it came.

"Thanks, and Farewell!" I hear[d] him say,
As with arch laugh, he soar['d]s away ;
"The glow thou gav'st me, back I send,
Thy books, philosophy, to end ;
To warm thy life----to break the spell,
This, this thou need'st----Thanks and farewell."

[Hail him with joy, and for the blest gift shout the Creator's loud praise.
If aught lived on thee, beautiful earth, since thy existence began,
Who ne'er rejoiced at his coming, 'twas in the form of a man ;
Man, whose faults we laugh at every day, or else of them complain----
Whose joys are vanity, whose strong passions o'er his reason reign ;
Who is every way a weak, impotent creature of an hour,
Who o'er himself and o'er external nature hath no power ;
Who cannot carry out one good resolution of his own----
Mutable, irregular, and forever unto evil prone ;
Who spends a few days in folly and sin, vain shadow and show,
And then goes down to the regions of misery, death and woe.
He's nought but thoughts----fleeting, shadowy thoughts----that gather
     and go ;
That chase and extinguish one another as fast as they flow ;]

130                          THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.
Successive and dying as they are is his being sublime, 
And only renewed unto him every moment of time.
He is the most helpless of all animal things at his birth;
His space of life is short that he truly enjoys upon earth;
In youth forward on things that are to come his vision is cast,
And in his feeble old age he looks back on things that are past;
He ever lives between the lands of disappointment and of hope,
And to all ills in nature found must yield, or with them bravely cope.
Through life he goes like a waif upon a sea that knows not any shore—
All the past is dim behind him, all the future vague before.
At the pleasure of another he’s ushered into the world,
And by a hundred accidents he’s swiftly out of it hurl’d;
His birth and education generally determine his fate,
And neither of those are in his own power to fix or create;
His wit is uncertain as his fortune or the term of his days,
Whether dark as clouds of the storm, or keen as the lightning ablaze;
For he hath not the creating or moulding of his own brain—
A blow on the head makes him a fool, stupid as beasts of the plain;
A little excess of passion, melancholy, sorrow or weal, 
Makes him far worse—mad and frantic as torn with fiery steel.
In his best senses he’s shallow; unstable as foam of the brine—
In nothing more blind and ignorant than things sacred and divine;
He falls down before an ape, a snake, stock, a stone or a clod,
And, all awed and adoring, he says, “Thou art surely my God!”
He can believe nonsense and contradiction, all follies on earth,
And makes it his religion to do so; they crown his sorrow and mirth.
And is this the great creature—this abject worm of an hour, 
Which God has fashioned, created by the might of His power, 
And the honor of His majesty—past, ever and now,
Upon whom all things must wait—to whom all things in nature must 
bow?
What’s in him that God, through all time, to be his refuge should vow?
What is there in him that God to him should more favor allow
Than the beasts that he goads with a curse as they toil at his plow?
Sure he knows no more of that God than brute creation doth, I trow!


                            THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.                              131
His life is but the vestibule of death, the archway to his tomb,
And his pilgrimage on earth is but a journey to its womb.
The pulse that preserves his being beats dead-march of his fleeting 
breath—
The blood which circulates his life haste’s it to the gulfs of death.
By nature in his constitution disease’s seeds are sown;
They lurk in the cells of every viscus, and granules of his bone.
E’en the earth and the atmosphere, whence he draws the breath of life,
Are impregnated with death, and teeming with its causes rife. 
Health is made to work its own destruction, and hasten on its way;
The food that nourishes contains the germs of swift decay;
The soul that vivifies first tends to wear an action of its own;
In ambush on every path the grisly tyrant Death is known.
And such will be man’s fate till the workings of the Almighty Mind
Shall make him that all-perfect being which God at first design’d;
When out of chaos He made the atoms of this world together bind,
And delighted saw the grand structure grow, His home for humankind.
Yes, such will be man’s lot until the High Arbiter of Fate,
His mysterious task with poor, feeble man He consummate,
Until from all humankind, good from evil, love from hate,
Be work’d out through sin and woe, and these lead them to their perfect
state.
Till one law, one God, one element, creation, keep in thrall,
One Being’s tidal ebb and flow, and one life pervade it all;
Be one soul and form, one sound and sight, one feeling’s rise and fall,
Like some mighty sea, with one eternal outflow and recall.
Thou, too, oh Earth! shalt have thy change, when comes the day of 
the Lord;
When the dregs of the wine of His wrath shall be over thee poured!
All the fish of the sea, the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air,
All things that creep on thy face, and all men shall tremble with fear;
All the trees of the forests and groves shall bow down to thy sod,
And thy hills shall melt as wax in the flame at the presence of God;
At His great coming all nature shall tremble with terror most dread—
The sun, the moon and the stars shall quake, fly and hide at His tread.

132                        THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.
All the volcanoes of earth, that all the vast ages have known,
Together shall roar, and send fatal flame from each blazing cone;
They’ll make thee, through all thy inmost vaults and caverns, quake 
and groan,
And girdle thee round and round with one infernal fiery zone.
A deluge of fluid fire shall o’er thy surface be roll’d,
Clothe thy tallest heights as the mass of waters in ages of old;
The windows of heaven shall be opened, and fire shall flow on thy 
form—
Thou shalt reel like a drunkard, be moved as a leaf in the storm.
On thee from on high blazing comets shall fall, and fiery stars—
All the spirits of fire shall descend in their glittering cars;
They’ll come on thee as figs from the fig tree, or leaves from the vine—
Thick as snows of the mountains that cover their forests of pine.
The Destroying Angel shall wax great at the voice of the Lord,
And the dregs of the wine of His wrath shall be terribly poured.
He shall into thee thrust his scythe, and gather the vine of the world,
And in the great wine-press of the wrath of God shall it be hurled. 
Thunder, lightning, earthquakes, and all the sons of fire and flame,
Shall rend the huge iron rocks of thy form and shatter thy frame;
They shall fall down into those crypts of fire God has hidden in thee,
And kept in a seething mass till the day of His wrath should set them 
free.
They shall flow o’er the crests of thy hills as they go thundering in;
They o’er thy walls shall rise and wrap them round with a fearful din;
Seas shall roar tumultuously though no storms are o’er them borne,
But their strong walls are broken in, and their floors asunder torn.
Through their groaning billows, and o’er their startled, quivering frame
Shall leap all-devouring tongues of blue, sulphureous flame;
All thy waters shall to fire turn at the fiat of the Lord, 
And be in o’erwhelming deluge o’er the frame of nature poured.
All through the terrible transgressions of the children of men,
Earth, thou’lt be shattered, ruined; field, mountain, valley and fen.
All through the sins of thy sons on thee shall be terribly poured
The cup of the dregs of the wine of the keen wrath of the Lord!


                              THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.                           133
But rejoice, rejoice, oh Earth! thou shalt from thy ruins rise again—
Brighter, fairer far than now, without a trace of woe or pain.
Everlasting beauty shall clothe, as with a robe, thy vast domain;
For a God of righteousness shall come on thee to live and reign.
Yea, He—He who once upon thee dwelt so humble and so poor,
Shall in glory come to dwell on thee, as He foretold of yore.
Yea, nature’s Lord and King of David’s line, the Crowned, the Crucified—
He who languished in Gethsemane, and who on Calvary died—
He who is the life and light of every clime, and hue, and race,
Whose brightest crown salvation is—who sends to all His healing grace,
Yea, He shall come in might and crush the powers of sin and hell,
And with all His chosen saints on thee in endless peace shall dwell.
There’s a long-lived bird, they tell us, that is single in her kind;
Never more than one at the same time upon thy face we’ll find; 
Which appears only at the end of some memorable year,
Then builds herself a nest of spices and blossoms rich and rare, 
Which, being set on fire by the sun or some secret power,
She hovers o’er it until the flames her form devour;
But swift those smouldering ashes to a second bird gives birth.
Surely this tale of the phœnix is meant as an emblem of thee, Earth.
But ere, oh World! thou shalt feel the overwhelming floods of flame—
Ere thy dying agonies shall pass throughout thy giant frame!
The heavens shall open wide, and thou its glorious hosts shalt scan,
And in their midst, on a flaming chariot, view the Son of man
On thee from heaven descending, in glory, power and might,
With all His mighty train of angels, archangel and saints of light,
Coming to triumph o’er His foes, and save those who love His name—
Coming with His hosts to gather the tares, and hurl them to the flame.
Thou shalt hear their hallelujahs breathed into the startled air,
And their shouts of salvation to God, whom they honor and fear,
“Now comes salvation and power, the reign of Him the adored,
And of His Christ our King, our Saviour and Lord.”
And who is He, who leads the armies of Heaven—that numberless 
throng—
Whose name, glory and praise, is the theme of their shout and their song ¿

134     THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.
'Tis He who, in ages ago, into Jerusalem came,
Mounted upon the wild colt of an ass, Christ Jesus His name;
Round whom the little children and multitude gathered and cried
"Hosanna to the Son of David! who for men suffered and died;
'Tis He, the same One, who, at His first coming into thee, Earth,
Was laid in a manger, instead of a cradle, so humble His birth;
A naked babe, dropped in a crib, all helpless, weak and forlorn,
His poor mother having no better home when her Sacred Child was born.
This poor babe, that has oft cried for the breast with hunger and tears---
Needed a little milk to refresh and support its tender years---
Who was so humble, so helpless, so poor, so lone at its birth,
Now appears to be the Lord---the Ruler of all heaven and earth.
If this Divine Spirit had fallen from the clouds in a tempest or flood,
Clad in a mortal body, all clothed with human flesh and blood,
And spent His life 'mongst sinners, who walk rounds of misery here,
Even that alone an all infinite condescension were;
But 'twas not enough to take on human nature, its woes and doom,
He was content to live in the dark cell of a mortal womb.
This is the doings of God---this is a wonder He has wrought;
'Tis past human understanding, human conception and thought.
'Tis He who has fix'd the time of that fiery terrible day,
When e'en the sun and the heavens shall quake, be dark with dismay.
Oh, how guilty mankind will tremble and be confounded with fears,
When the voice of the angel and the trump's shrill sound reaches their ears!
For this shall give the general alarm all over the world---
E'en the dead shall rise, the womb of the tomb asunder be hurl'd.
"He cometh! He cometh! to judge the world!" the nations will cry---
The crucified God is return'd in His glory and power most high,
To take vengeance---dire, lasting vengeance---on all of His foes,
Not only on them that pierced Him with nails, and laughed at His throes,
But them who blaspheme Him, heed not His threats, love not His name;
On these shall He bring utter ruin, anguish, terror and shame;
Though they fly to the clefts of the mountains, they'll fall on their path
Into the cup of the dregs of the wine of His bitterest wrath.



THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.      159
The wounded seem to forget awhile their grim and gory state;
They look up with smiles of joy, for towards them o'er the bloody green,
Hastening to their aid and comfort, woman's graceful form is seen,
With sad, piteous look they come, gone are all womanly fears,
They haste forth to soothe the wounded, and to bathe the dead with tears;
Like angels sent at Heaven's command to solace human woe,
They o'er the wounded lean, and all balm within their power bestow.
And 'mongst the numerous throng of female forms that crowd the scene
Minona and Inez move, with hasty steps and anxious mien;
Like the rest their hands are busy soothing wounds of dying men,
Water up the hillsides bring from a deep and gory glen;
Burning, aching temples laving, and slaking feverish thirst,
Staunching wounds whence wells the blood-like streams that from their
fountains burst,
Raising heads of feeble dying men from off their reeking lair,
And breathing prayers for them as their parting spirits wing through air.
Blessed be woman wherever found, be she mother, maid or wife,
She's the spirit of our soul, the Aurora of our life,
The sunlight of our joy, and the starlight for our gloom;
An angel God sent to guide us from the cradle to the tomb.
She, she who when the Almighty Mind had unto being brought
The whole grand creation, and man after His own image wrought;
When He had made earth, sun, moon and stars---yea, all the planets
bright,
And all His countless trains of angels, archangels and saints of light;
Yet His whole grand work imperfect was, saw the Almighty Mind,
And in Eden His crowning task of creation's birth designed.
All, all His noblest, grandest elements His plastic hand combined,
Formed a creature beyond all others angelic and refined.
To form her all-perfect soul, bewitching, spirit-speaking eyes,
He brought the radiance from the stars, and the pure bright azure of
the skies,
Her lovely features from the choicest flowers of heaven He wrought,
And to wreathe them o'er with smiles, beams from the laughing sun He
brought.

160  THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

The snowy whiteness of her skin formed of choicest  seraph's plumes,
Hair of the mist of heaven that round His secret dwelling looms;
Then He formed and fashioned her - her limbs He grandly grooved and paired,
All the grace and harmony His thoughts conceived were in her laired;
Then into her His spirit breathed, gave to her a deathless soul,
Though her being did the noblest feelings of the Godhead roll,
That through never ending time should her glorious race control;
Then He pronounced creation done, perfected, complete and whole!
As when first across its face the first glad ray of light was seen,
All creation thrilled with joy when it beheld its lovely queen
Moving from the plastic hand Divine upon the glowing green,
Superb in form and limb, with majestic, all-transcendent mien.
And though womankind have fallen since on earth her race began,
Yet Nature's queen she's still, and the sunlight of the soul of man.
If she's fallen so have men, and all in creation's endless round - 
More sinned against than sinning is lovely woman ever found.
Behind a shroud of crimson cloud the sun has long rolled from sight,
And fast, fast pour o'er hill and moor the damp, cooling shades of night,
Till like a huge and distant barn wrapt in folds of ruddy flame,
The red moon rises o'er the hills, looking down with eye of blame.
Like a mournful, tear-eyed widow moving to her loved one's tomb,
She rises o'er the hills, looking down upon this world of woe and gloom.
Oh, thou lone, cheerless, queen of night, sad companion of the earth,
Has e'er a race like mortal man on thy surface had its birth?
A race like man though by nature heir to innumerable woes,
Still daily seek new means to increase each other's ghastly throes;
Yea, fondly nurse and cherish all the bitterest pangs and worst
With which God in time of anger the whole vast race has crust;
A race that gladly on its kind fell war and devastation deal,
And aye creating woes and wounds they've no art to soothe nor heal.
Has e'er a race like mortal man o'er thy regions ruled and swayed?
Has e'er a carnage pile like this been e'er upon thy bosom laid?
Has e'er thy realm been trod like earth, thou sad, cheerless queen of night,

THE BATTLE OF NASEBY.
It was about noon of a glorious day of June
That we saw their banners dance and their cuirasses shine;
And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair,
And Astley and Sir Marmaduke and Rupert of the Rhine!

Like a servant of the Lord, with his Bible and his sword,
The General rode along us to form us for the fight,
When a murmuring sound broke out and swelled into a shout,
Among the godless horsemen upon the tyrant's right.

And hark! like the roar of the billows on the shore,
The cry of battle rises along their charging line!--
For God! for the Cause! for the Church! for the Laws!
For Charles, King of England, and Rupert of the Rhine!

The furious German comes, with his clarions and his drums,
His bravoes of Alsatia and pages of Whitehall;
They are bursting on our flanks:-- grasp your pikes;
close your ranks--
For Rupert never comes but to conquer or to fall.

They are here; --they rush on! We are broken-- we are gone;--
Our left is borne before them like stubble on the blast.
O Lord, put forth thy might! O Lord, defend the right!
Stand back to back, in God's name, and fight it to the last.

Stout Skippon hath a wound;-- the centre hath given ground;--
Hark! hark! What means the trampling of horsemen on our rear?
Whose banner do I see, boys?-- 'Tis he, thank God, 'tis he, boys!
Bear up another minute. Brave Oliver is here!


164 THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

The poor mortal warring hard to keep its spirit in control—
The immortal struggling to hasten forth to its eternal goal!
Hope on!—let hope and joy, fond maid, warm thee with their brightest
ray!
But, alas! alas! thy hope and joy too soon will die away!
Yea, die away as flowers round which the blasting lightnings shoot,
That fall, wither in their bloom, and never ripen into fruit.
Yes, gladness brightens her soul, like the beam of a cloudy day
When it falls on a flowery field just ere the whirlwinds bray;
Or brightens as the green dewy tree, when the sun o'er its form
Pours his streamy beams ere he hides his face in the coming storm.
Be happy while you may; your cup is full, and its bitter draught
To its very dregs shall soon by thee, alas! sweet maid, be quaffed!
Though thou'rt fairer than the fairest flower that e'er bloomed on heath,
Yet thou shalt groan 'neath sorrow, as Atlas groaned the world beneath.
Yea, rejoice, sweet maid! for, lo! to make thy happiness complete,
Inez and the chaplain of the ranks draw near with hurrying feet;—
With her infant on her arm, fair Inez hastes with eager tread:
One sole desire is hers—to see Moran and Minona wed!
Well, too well, she knows the vital spark that in the hero burns
Is waning fast, and hastes the soul from whence it never more returns
Till earth and seas give up their dead, at the angel's trumpet roll,
And man starts from out the grave to receive once more that guest, the
soul.
Side by side the wounded hero with his cherished idol stands,
And now the reverend man fast together joins their trembling hands;
Now from his thin white lips, sublime and solemn on the midnight air,
Bursts the sacred rite that makes them one—the holy marriage prayer!
'Tis done! They stand as one; their vows are registered on high;
And those God has bound together let no man dare to sunder try;
For those that God has bound on earth shall be bound in heaven too—
None through all eternity but Him the bonds that bind them can undo.
"Press me! press me closer, wife!—by that dear name I call thee now,
Though my sands of life are fleeting and Death's damp steals o'er my
brow!


Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row,
Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the
dykes,
Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the Accurst,
And at a shock have scattered the forest of his pikes.

Fast, fast, the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide
Their coward heads, predestined to rot on Temple-
Bar.
And he—he turns, he flies!--shame to those cruel
eyes
That bore to look on torture, and dare not look on 
war.

Ho! comrades, scour the plain; and ere ye strip the
slain,
First give another stab to make your prize secure;
Then shake from sleeves and pockets their broad-pieces
and their lockets,
The tokens of the wanton, the plunder of the poor.

Where be your tongues that late mocked at heaven and
hell and fate,
And the fingers that once were so busy with your
blades;
Your perfumed satin clothes, your catches and your
oaths,
Your stage-plays and your sonnets, your diamonds
and your spades?

Fools! your doublets shone with gold, and your hearts
were gay and bold
When ye kissed your lily hands to your lemans to-
day;
And to-morrow shall the fox, from her chambers in the
rocks,
Lead forth her tawny cubs to howl above the prey.

168  THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG.

Yea, though he lingers here, no more with earthly cares his spirit grieves,
Its varied woes lie heaped round his soul as round rock are withered leaves;
And long he'll sojourn here, as a forgotten atom of light,
Some glittering world has lost upon its never-ceasing flight;
As some lofty mountain's brow, on which eternal sunbeams glow,
While damp and black vapors drown in night the spacious vales below,
So undarkened by despair he thus augustly rears his head
At this dark hour, which general woe upon the throng has spread.
Sweet peace and heavenly hope, and humble joy untouched by dole,
Divinely beam on his manly face and his exalted soul;
Innumerable sorrows have crowned him for the world of light
with lustre all his own, with incommunicable glory bright,
And afflictions gather round great souls as storms round mountains sweep,
Though dread and vast comes the thunder blast, forked lightnings flame and leap;
Unharmed their lofty peaks they rear, and break all the storms that blow,
Serving to purify the air on the spacious plains below;
Each dark, heavy load of sorrow seems like stone hung round the neck,
Which bears us on to the urge that teems with ruin and with wreck;
But they are often like the stones used  by those who dive for pearl,
And who 'midst shipwrecks search for gold where strong roaring eddies whirl,
Which enables them to reach their prize 'midst ocean's stormy flow,
And from out its floods far richer rise, dread ocean's treasures show.
A little grief distracts, confounds the soul, unnerves both heart and hand,
While at one of far greater bounds we do all collected stand
As a bell when slightly cracked redounds with harsh, grating sounds surcharged,
But recovers all its clear, deep tones when the fissure is enlarged.
Up the east, Aurora, rosy fingered, drives her golden car,
The moon wanes dim in heaven, fainter grows the twinkling of each star,
And like a god, all dressed in glory, the sun resplendent glows,
And full on mountain field and valley his cheering lustre flows;
But o'er the hills and valleys is heard no sound of war to-day, 

JOHN ANDERSON MY JO. 








                                                     Mrs. C. W. Romney.


                                                                                       Boston Post,
The Arlington.                                                              Buffalo Courier,
                                                                                       Indianapolis Sentinel

168 THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG. 

Yea, though he lingers here, no more with earthly care his spirit grieves, 
Its varied woes lie heaped round his soul as round rock are withered
leaves; 
And long he'll sojourn here, as a forgotten atom of the light, 
Some glittering world has lost upon its never-ceasing flight; 
As some lofty mountain's brow, on which eternal sunbeams glow, 
While damp and black vapors down in night the spacious vales below, 
So undarkened by despair he thus augustly rears his head
At this dark hour, which general woe upon the throng has spread.
Sweet peace and heavenly hope, and humble joy untouched by dole, 
Divinely beam on his manly face and his exalted soul;
Innumerable sorrows have crowned him for the world of light
With lustre all his own, with incommunicable glory bright, 
And afflictions gather round great souls as storms round mountains sweep, 
Though dread and vast comes the thunder blast, forked lightnings flame
and leap;
Unharmed their lofty peaks they rear, and break all the storms that blow, 
Serving to purify the air on the spacious plains below;
Each dark, heavy load of sorrow seems like stone hung round the neck, 
Which bears us on the gurge that teems with ruin and with wreck;
But they are often like the stones used by those who dive for pearl, 
And who 'midst shipwrecks search for gold where strong roaring eddies 
whirl, 
Which enables them to reach their prize 'midst ocean's stormy flow, 
And from out its floods far richer rise, dread ocean's treasures show. 
A little grief distracts, confounds the soul, unnerves both heart and hand, 
While at one of far greater bounds we do all collected stand
As a bell when slightly cracked redounds with harsh, grating sounds
surcharged, 
But recovers all its clear, deep tones when the fissure is enlarged. 
Up the east, Aurora, rosy fingered, drives her golden car, 
The moon wanes dim in heaven, fainter grows the twinkling of each star, 
And like a god, all dressed in glory, the sun resplendent glows, 
And full on mountain field and valley his cheering lustre flows;
But o'er the hills and valleys is heard no sound of war to-day, 


JOHN ANDERSON MY JO. 
JOHN Anderson my jo John, 
When we were first acquaint, 
Your locks were like the raven, John, 
Your bonny broo was brent:
But noo ye're grooin auld John, 
Your locks are like the snow, 
But blessings on your frosty prow, 
John Anderson my Jo. 

John Anderson my jo John,
We clamb life's hill thegither, 
And money a cantie day, John, 
We've had wi ane anither;
Noo, we maun totter doon, John, 
But hand in hand we'll go, 
And sleep thegither at the foot, 
John Anderson, my Jo.

170 THE BRIDE OF GETTYSBURG. 

A man with hoary, wavy lock and of tall and comely mien ;
He plants the flowers, and o'er their tombs he's reared the willow's shade, 
And daily, morn and eve, for them above their graves his prayers are 
made.
Let winter come and icy tempests sweep, and earth with snows be crowned,
Yet still morn and eve beside those graves that hoary man is found. 
Perhaps at times he weeps, but no trace of grief his visage shows ; 
Perhaps he longs for rest like theirs, for as deep and still repose, 
Till soul and body, like peevish man and wife, united jar ; 
Yet they're ever, ever loath to part, whate'er their troubles are.
But thou, sweet maid, who sleep'st in the grave from human eye concealed, 
To whom all the awful mysteries of Death are now revealed, 
Come, come if thou canst to him who sings of thee and mourns thy fate, 
And guide his steps daily towards his God his spirit elevate ;
Teach me by day or night, through woe or weal, whatever land be trod, 
To ever keep like thee that fixed, abiding faith and trust in God ; 
Whatever rolling wastes of desert lands torment my aching eye, 
And howling o'er those burning wastes roaring simoom blasts sweep by ;
And woe at length with fullest strength pours forth all its wrath on me, 
Still let my mind, to fate resigned, place all trust in God like thee. 
In smiling peace and calm let my soul with faith in Him be stored, 
As when the nights of storms close in, awful tempests are abroad ; 
The air that makes the furnace roar, o'er flowery vales has blown, 
The air that soothed a fevered brow, has to storms terrific grown ;
Flowers that sweetest perfume gave, around have deadly poisons thrown, 
Mankind live by every breath of God, and not by bread alone. 
Bright as the star of diamond ray, outshining all within the pole, 
And firm as the everlasting hills, be the faith that fills my soul ; 
Not like the gourd that in a night arose and threw its shade around, 
And ere the noon-sun's beams appeared lay dead and withered on the 
ground. 
A thousand weeds grow, decay and rot, and from the soil are cleared 
Long before one sturdy, healthful tree is unto fruitage reared ; 
The oak a hundred years have reared shall long ages crown the land, 
And defy all roaring hurricanes, however rough 'tis fanned. 

at Hawthorne Rooms. Boston 
April 15. 1881 - 
WALT WHITMAN LAST NIGHT, 
April 15, 1880, at Association Hall, Philadelphia.

Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.