PARDON.

PAINS the sharp sentence the heart in whose wrath it was uttered,

Now thou art cold;

Vengeance, the headlong, and Justice, with purpose close muttered,

Loosen their hold.

Death brings atonement; he did that whereof ye accuse

him,

Murder accurst;

But, from that crisis of crime in which Satan did lose

him,

Suffered the worst.

Harshly the red dawn arose on a deed of his doing, Never to mend;

But harsher days he wore out in the bitter pursuing

And the wild end.

So lift the pale flag of truce, wrap those mysteries

round him,

In whose avail

Madness that moved, and the swift retribution that

found him,

Falter and fail.

So the soft purples that quiet the heavens with

mourning,

Willing to fall,

Lend him one fold, his illustrious victim adorning
With wider pall.

Back to the cross, where the Saviour uplifted in dying Bade all souls live,

Turns the reft bosom of Nature, his mother, low

sighing,

Greatest, forgive!

WELCOME.

THEY are coming, O our brothers! they are coming; From the formless distance creeps the growing sound, Like a rill-fed torrent, in whose rapid summing Stream doth follow stream, till waves of joy abound.

These have languished in the shadow of the prison, Long with hunger pains and bitter fever low: Welcome back our lost, from living graves arisen, From the wild despite and malice of the foe.

These have heard the cannon roar, the musket rattle; Where grim death affronted, these have flown before: Set their standards in the fiery tide of battle

Till the red waves parted, and the right went o'er.

As the Genii of the clouds refresh with water

Plants and precious seeds that bear the life of States, These have poured their blood in meadows sown with

slaughter,

Where the harvest of the Land's redemption waits.

Haste, ye mothers! let your household vigils slacken; In your glad attire arrayed, go banded forth:

For these martial men, these ranks the sun doth

blacken,

Are your babes indeed, the jewels of the North.

By the loves ye prize and live for, ask that never Need so sore again the heart of home invade : Neither brazen trump, nor wires that wail and quiver, Bid you yield the living, and take back the dead.

Better let them build who rear the house of nations Than that Fate should rock it to foundation stone: Leave the earth her storms, the stars their perturba

tions,

Steadfast welfare stays where Justice binds her zone.

When the human faults that mix in human labor

Miss the measure set to caution and constrain,
Let the wise of heart instruct his ruder neighbor,
Let the loving soul hold violence in chain.

But when Falsehood lifts her challenge cry stupendous,
When the fiery angel bars our gates of bliss,

Ask the holy heavens such hosts again to lend us,
With such leaders, such a righteous cause as this.

THE END.