EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH OF PARK GODWIN, ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

THE great captain of our cause-ABRAHAM LINCOLN-smitten by the basest hand ever upraised against human innocence, is gone, gone, gone! He who had borne the heaviest of the brunt, in our four long years of war, whose pulse beat livelier, whose eyes danced brighter than any others, when

"The storm drew off

Its scattered thunders groaning round the hills,"

in the supreme hour of his joy and glory was struck down. One who, great in himself, as well as by position, has suddenly departed. There is something startling, ghastly, awful in the manner of his going off. But the chief poignancy of our distress is not for the greatness fallen, but for the goodness lost. Presidents have died before: during this bloody war we have lost many eminent generals-Lyon, Baker, Kearney, Sedgwick, Reno, and others; we have lost lately our finest scholar, publicist, orator. Our hearts still bleed for the companions, friends, brothers that sleep the sleep "that knows no waking," but no loss has been comparable to his, who was our supremest leader, our safest counsellor our wisest friend--our dear father. Would you know what Lincoln was, look at this vast metropolis, covered with the habiliments of woe! Never in human history has there been so universal, so spontaneous, so profound an expression of a nation's bereavement.

Yet we sorrow not as those who are without hope. Our chief is gone; but our cause remains; dearer to our hearts, because he is now become the martyr; consecrated by his sacrifice; more widely accepted by all parties; and fragrant and lovely forevermore in the memories of all the good and the great, of all lands, and for all time. The rebellion, which began in the blackest treachery, to be ended in the foulest assassination; this rebellion, accursed in its motive, which was to rivet the shackles of slavery on a whole race for all the future; accursed in its means, which have been "red ruin and the breaking up of laws," the overthrow of the mildest and blessedest of governments, and the profuse shedding of brother's blood by brother's hands; accursed in its accompaniments of violence, cruelty, and barbarism, and is now doubly accursed in its final act of cold-blooded murder.

Cold-blooded, but impotent, and defeated in its own purposes! The frenzied hand which slew the head of the government, in the mad hope of paralyzing its functions, only drew the hearts of the people together more closely to strengthen and sustain its power All the North once more, without party or division, clenches hands around the common altar: all the North swears a more earnest fidelity to freedom; all the North again presents its breasts as the living shield and bulwark of the nation's unity and life. Oh! foolish and wicked dream, oh! insanity of fanaticism,

oh! blindness of black hate-to think that this majestic temple of human liberty, which is built upon the clustered columns of free and independent states, and whose base is as broad as the continent-could be shaken to pieces, by striking off the ornaments of its capital! No! this nation lives, not in one man nor in a hundred men, however eminent, however able, however endeared to us; but in the affections, the virtues, the energies and the will of the whole American people. It has perpetual succes sion, not like a dynasty, in the line of its rulers, but in the line of its masses. They are always alive; they are always present to empower its acts, and to impart an unceasing vitality to its institutions. No maniac's blade, no traitor's bullet shall ever penetrate that heart, for it is immortal, like the substance of Milton's angels, and can only "by annihilating die."

THE SLEEPING SENTINEL.-Francis De Haes Janvier.

The incidents here woven into verse relate to William Scott, a young soldier from the State of Vermont, who, while on duty as a sentinel at night, fell asleep, and, having been condemned to die, was pardoned by the President. They form a brief record of his humble life at home and in the field, and of his glorious death.

'Twas in the sultry summer-time, as War's red records show, When patriot armies rose to meet a fratricidal foe

When, from the North, and East, and West, like the upheaving

sea,

Swept forth Columbia's sons, to make our country truly free.

Within a prison's dismal walls, where shadows veil'd decay—
In fetters, on a heap of straw, a youthful soldier lay:
Heart-broken, hopeless, and forlorn, with short and feverish
breath,

He waited but the appointed hour to die a culprit's death.

Yet, but a few brief weeks before, untroubled with a care,
He roam'd at will, and freely drew his native mountain air-
Where sparkling streams leap mossy rocks, from many a wood
land font,

And waving elms, and grassy slopes, give beauty to Vermont!

Where, dwelling in an humble cot, a tiller of the soil,
Encircled by a mother's love, he shared a father's toil-
Till, borne upon the wailing winds, his suffering country's cry
Fired his young heart with fervent zeal, for her to live or die.
Then left he all:-a few fond tears, by firmness half conceal'd,
A blessing, and a parting prayer, and he was in the field--

The field of strife, whose dews are blood, whose breezes War's hot breath,

Whose fruits are garner'd in the grave, whose husbandman is Death!

Without a murmur, he endured a service new and hard;

But, wearied with a toilsome march, it chanced one night, on guard,

He sank, exhausted, at his post, and the gray morning found
His prostrate form-a sentinel, asleep, upon the ground!

So, in the silence of the night, aweary, on the sod,
Sank the disciples, watching near the suffering Son of God ;~
Yet, Jesus, with compassion moved, beheld their heavy eyes,
And, though betray'd to ruthless foes, forgiving, bade them rise!
But God is love,-and finite minds can faintly comprehend
How gentle Mercy, in His rule, may with stern Justice blend;
And this poor soldier, seized and bound, found none to justify,
While War's inexorable law decreed that he must die.

Twas night. In a secluded room, with measured tread, and slow,

A statesman of commanding mien, paced gravely to and fro.
Oppress'd, he ponder'd on a land by civil discord rent;

On brothers arm'd in deadly strife:-it was the President!

The woes of thirty millions fill'd his burden'd heart with grief;
Embattled hosts, on land and sea, acknowledged him their chief;
And yet, amid the din of war, he heard the plaintive cry
Of that poor soldier, as he lay in prison, doom'd to die!

'Twas morning.-On a tented field, and through the heated haze, Flash'd back, from lines of burnish'd arms, the sun's effulgent blaze;

While, from a sombre prison-house, seen slowly to emerge,
A sad procession, o'er the sward, moved to a muffled dirge.

And in the midst, with faltering step, and pale and anxious face,
In manacles, between two guards, a soldier had his place.

A youth-led out to die ;--and yet, it was not death, but shame, That smote his gallant heart with dread, and shock his manly frame!

Still on, before the marshall'd ranks, the train pursued its way
Up to the designated spot, whereon a coffin lay-

His coffin! And, with reeling brain, despairing-desolate
He took his station by its side, abandon'd to his fate!

Then came across his wavering sight strange pictures in the air:

He saw his distant mountain home; he saw his mother there;

fTe saw his father bow'd with grief, through fast-declining years; He saw a nameless grave; and then, the vision closed-in tears!

Yet, once again. In double file, advancing, then, he saw
Twelve comrades, sternly set apart to execute the law—

But saw no more:-his senses swam-deep darkness settled

round

And, shuddering, he awaited now the fatal volley's sound!

Then suddenly was heard the noise of steeds and wheels approach,

An 1, rolling through a cloud of dust, appear'd a stately coach. On, past the guards, and through the field, its rapid course was bent,

Till, halting, 'mid the lines was seen the nation's President!

He came to save that stricken soul, now waking from despair;
And from a thousand voices rose a shout which rent the air!
The pardon'd soldier understood the tones of jubilee,

And, bounding from his fetters, bless'd the land that made him free!

'Twas Spring. Within a verdant vale, where Warwick's crystal tide

Reflected, o'er its peaceful breast, fair fields on either side—
Where birds and flowers combined to cheer a sylvan solitude-
Two threatening armies, face to face, in fierce defiance stood!

Two threatening armies! One invoked by injured Liberty-
Which bore above its patriot ranks the Symbol of the Free;
And one, a rebel horde, beneath a flaunting flag of bars,
A fragment, torn by traitorous hands, from Freedom's Stripes
and Stars!

A sudden shock which shook the earth, 'mid vapor dense and dun,

Proclaim'd, along the echoing hills, the conflict had begun; While shot and shell, athwart the stream with fiendish fury sped, To strew among the living lines the dying and the dead!

Then, louder than the roaring storm, peal'd forth the stern command,

"Charge! soldiers, charge!" and, at the word, with shouts, a fearless band,

Two hundred heroes from Vermont, rush'd onward, through the

flood,

And upward o'er the rising ground, they mark'd their way in blood!

The smitten foe before them fled, in terror, from his post-
While, unsustain'd, two hundred stood, to battle with a host!
Then, turning, as the rallying ranks, with murderous fire, replied,
They bore the fallen o'er the field, aud through the purple tile!

B

The fallen! And the first who fell in that unequal strife, Was he whom Mercy sped to save when Justice claim'd his life

The pardon'd soldier! And, while yet the conflict raged around-While yet his life-blood ebb'd away through every gaping

wound-

While yet his voice grew tremulous, and death bedinım'd his

eye

He call'd his comrades to attest he had not fear'd to die!

And, in his last expiring breath, a prayer to heaven was sent That God, with His unfailing grace, would bless our President!

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.-By George II. Boker.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around.-Coleridge.

O, WHITHER sail you, Sir John Franklin?
Cried a whaler in Batlin's Bay.

To know if between the land and the pole
I may find a broad sea-way.

I charge you back, Sir John Franklin,
As you would live and thrive;

For between the land and the frozen pole
No man may sail alive.

But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,
And spoke unto his men:-

Half England is wrong, if he is right;
Bear off to the westward then.

O, whither sail you, brave Englishman?
Cried the little Esoniaux.

Between the land and the polar star
My goodly vessels go.

Come down, if you would journey there
The little Indian said;

And change your cloth for fur clothing,
Your vessel for a sled.

But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,
And the crew laughed with him too;
A sailor to change from ship to sled,
J. ween, were something new.

All through the long, long polar day,
The vessels westward sped;

And wherever the sail of Sir John was blown,
The ice gave way and fled.