Why is my mother musing there,

On that same consecrated spot

Where once she taught me words of prayer?
But now she hears, she heeds me not.
Mute in her winding-sheet she stands;
Cold, cold, I feel her icy hands,---
Her icy hands!

She's vanished; but a dearer friend,-
I know her by her angel smile,——
Has come her partner to attend,
His hours of misery to beguile;
Haste, haste! loved one, and set me free;
'Twere heaven to 'scape from hence to thee,-
From hence to thee.

She does not hear; away she flies,
Regardless of the chain I wear,
Back to her mansion in the skies,
To dwell with kindred spirits there.
Why has she gone? Why did she come?
O God, I'm ruined! Give me rum,-
Oh, give me rum!

Hark, hark! for bread my children cry,
A cry that drinks my spirits up;

But 'tis in vain, in vain to try;

Oh, give me back the drunkard's cup!

My lips are parched, my heart is sad;
This cursed chain! 'twill make me mad,—
"Twill make me mad!

It won't wash out, that crimson stain!

I've scoured those spots, and made them white; Blood reappears again, again,

Soon as the morning brings the light!

When from my sleepless couch I come,
To see, to feel,—oh, give me rum!
I must have rum.

'Twas there I heard his piteous cry,
And saw his last imploring look,
But steeled my heart, and bade him die,
Then from him golden treasures took;
Accursed treasure! stinted sum!
Reward of guilt! Give, give me rum,—
Oh, give me rum!

Hark! still I hear that piteous wail;
Before my eyes his spectre stands;
And when it frowns on me I quail!

Oh, I would fly to other lands;
But, that pursuing, there 'twould come;
There's no escape! Oh, give me rum,-
Oh, give me rum!

Guard, guard those windows! bar that door!
Yonder I armed bandits see!

They've robbed my house of all its store,
And now return to murder me;
They're breaking in; don't let them come!
Drive, drive them hence! but give me rum,→→
Oh, give me rum!

See how that rug those reptiles soil;
They're crawling o'er me in my bed;
I feel their clammy, snaky coil

On every limb,-around my head:
With forked tongue I see them play.
I hear them hiss;-tear them away,-
Tear them away!

A fiend! a fiend, with many a dart,
Glares on me with his bloodshot eye,
And aims his missiles at my heart,-
Oh! whither, whither shall I fly?
Fly? No, it is no time for flight;
Fiend! I know thy hellish purpose well;
Avaunt! avaunt, thou hated sprite,
And hie thee to thy native hell!

He's gone, he's gone! and I am free:
He's gone, the faithless, braggart liar;
He said he'd come to summon me—
See there again, my bed's on fire!
Fire! water! help! Oh haste, I die!
The flames are kindling round my head!
This smoke!-I'm strangling!-cannot fly!
Oh! snatch me from this burning bed!

There, there, again! that demon's there,
Crouching to make a fresh attack;

See how his flaming eyeballs glare!

Thou fiend of fiends, what's brought thee back?

Back in thy car? for whom? for where?

He smiles, he beckons me to come:

What are those words thou'st written there? "In hell they never want for rum!"

Not want for rum? Read that again!
I feel the spell! haste, drive me down
Where rum is free, where revellers reign
And I can wear the drunkard's crown.

Accept thy proffer, fiend? I will;
And to thy drunken banquet come;
Fill the great cauldron from thy still
With boiling, burning, fiery rum.
There will I quench this horrid thirst;
With boon companions drink and dwell;
Nor plead for rum, as here I must,—
There's liberty to drink in hell.

Thus raved that maniac rum had made;
Then, starting from his haunted bed,

On, on! ye demons, on! he said,
Then silent sunk,-his soul had fled.

T. W. Nott

MY BEAUTIFUL CHILD.

Beautiful child! by thy mother's knee,
In the golden future what wilt thou be?
Angel or demon, or god sublime,
Upas of evil, or flower of time?
Dashing, flashing, madly down,
Weaving of horror a fairy crown;
Or, gliding on in a shining track,
Like the kingly sun that ne'er looks back?
Daintiest dreamer that ever smiled!
What wilt thou be, my beautiful child?

Beautiful child! in my garden bowers,
Friend of the butterflies, birds, and flowers;
Crystal and pure as the sparkling stream,
Goodness and truth in thy features beam.
Brighter, whiter soul than thine

Never was seen in a mortal shrine.

My heart thou hast gladdened two sweet years,
With rainbows of hope suffused my tears;
Wherever thy sunny smile doth fall,

The glory of God beams over all.

Beautiful child! to thy look is given
A purity less of earth than heaven,
With thy tell-tale eyes and prattling tongue,
I wish thou couldst ever thus be young.
Tripping, skipping, humming bird,
Everywhere thy voice is heard;

In the garden nooks thou oft art found,
With flowers thy bosom and neck around;
And when at thy prayers, with figure quaint,
Oh! how I love thee, my infant saint!

Beautiful child! what thy fate shall be
Is wisely hidden, perchance, from me.
A fallen star thou may'st leave my side,
And sorrow and shame may thee betide:
Shivering, quivering, through the street,
Wretched, down-trampled, cursed, and bear;
Ashamed to live, and afraid to die,

No home, no friend, and a frowning sky.
Merciful Father! my brain grows wild;
Good angels guard my beautiful child!

Beautiful child! thou may'st soar above,
A warbling cherub of joy and love;
A wave on eternity's mighty sea;
A blossom on life's immortal tree;
Flowering, towering, evermore,
'Mid vernal airs of the golden shore.
Oh! as I gaze on thy sinless bloom,
And thy radiant face that laughs at gloom,
I pray God keep thee thus undefiled;
I pray Heaven bless my beautiful child.

W. A. II. Sigourney.

EXTRACT FROM A SERMON ON THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Republican institutions have been vindicated in this experience as they never were before; and the whole history of the last, four years, rounded up by this cruel stroke, seems, in the providence of God, to have been clothed, now, with an illustration, with a sympathy, with an aptness, and with a significance, such as we never could have expected nor imagined. God, I think, bas said, by the voice of this event, to all nations of the

:

earth. "Republican liberty, based upon true Christianity, is firm as the foundation of the globe."

Even he who now sleeps has, by this event, been clothed with new influence. Dead, he speaks to men who now willingly hear what before they refused to listen to. Now his simple and weighty words will be gathered like those of Washington, and your children, and your children's children, shall be taught to ponder the simplicity and deep wisdom of utterances which, in their time, passed, in party heat, as idle words. Men will receive a new impulse of patriotism for his sake, and will guard with zeal the whole country which he loved so well. I swear you, on the altar of his memory, to be more faithful to the country for which he has perished. They will, as they follow his hearse, swear a new hatred to that slavery against which he warred, and which, in vanquishing him, has made him a martyr and a conqueror. I swear you, by the memory of this martyr, to hate slavery with an unappeasable hatred. They will admire and imitate the firmness of this man, his inflexible conscience for the right; and yet his gentleness, as tender as a woman's, his moderation of spirit, which not all the heat of party could inflame, nor all the jars and disturbances of this country shake out of its place I swear you to an emulation of his justice, his modera tion, and his mercy.

You I can comfort; but how can I speak to that twilight million to whom his name was as the name of an angel of God? There will be wailing in places which no minister shall be able to reach. When, in hovel and in cot, in wood and in wilderness, in the field throughout the South, the dusky children, who looked upon him as that Moses whom God sent before them to lead them out of the land of bondage, learn that he has fallen, who who shall comfort them? O thou Shepherd of Israel, that didst comfort thy people of old, to thy care we commit the helpless, the long-wronged, and grieved.

And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when alive. The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and states are his pallbearers, and the cannon beats the hours with solemn progression. Dead, dead, DEAD, he yet speaketh. Is