constitutional freedom throughout the world are at this moment turned
eagerly here,--more eagerly than ever before,--to behold an example of
successful republican institutions, and to see them come out safely and
triumphantly from the fiery trial to which they are now subjected!
I have the firmest faith that these eyes and these hearts will not be
disappointed. I have the strongest belief that the visions and phantoms of
disunion which now appall us will soon be remembered only like the clouds
of some April morning, or "the dissolving views" of some evening spectacle.
I have the fullest conviction that this glorious republic is destined to
outlast all, all, at either end of the Union, who may be plotting against
its peace, or predicting its downfall.
"Fond, impious man! think'st thou yon sanguine cloud
Raised by thy breath, can quench the orb of day?
To morrow, it repairs its golden flood,
And warms the nations with redoubled ray!"
Let us proceed in the settlement of the unfortunate controversies in which
we find ourselves involved, in a spirit of mutual conciliation and
concession:--let us invoke fervently upon our efforts the blessings of that
Almighty Being who is "the author of peace and lover of concord:"--and we
shall still find order springing out of confusion, harmony evoked from
discord, and peace, union and liberty, once more reassured to our land!
THE WOMEN OF MUMBLES HEAD.
BY CLEMENT SCOTT.
Bring, novelist, your note-book! bring, dramatist, your pen!
And I'll tell you a simple story of what women do for men.
It's only a tale of a lifeboat, of the dying and the dead,
Of the terrible storm and shipwreck that happened off Mumbles Head!
Maybe you have traveled in Wales, sir, and know it north and south;
Maybe you are friends with the "natives" that dwell at Oystermouth;
It happens, no doubt, that from Bristol you've crossed in a casual way,
And have sailed your yacht in the summer in the blue of Swansea Bay.
Well! it isn't like that in the winter, when the lighthouse stands alone,
In the teeth of Atlantic breakers that foam on its face of stone;
It wasn't like that when the hurricane blew, and the storm-bell tolled,
or when
There was news of a wreck, and the lifeboat launched, and a desperate
cry for men.
When in the world did the coxswain shirk? a brave old salt was he!
Proud to the bone of as four strong lads as ever had tasted the sea,
Welshmen all to the lungs and loins, who, about that coast, 'twas said,
Had saved some hundred lives apiece--at a shilling or so a head!
So the father launched the lifeboat, in the teeth of the tempest's roar,
And he stood like a man at the rudder, with an eye on his boys at the oar.
Out to the wreck went the father! out to the wreck went the sons!
Leaving the weeping of women, and booming of signal guns;
Leaving the mother who loved them, and the girls that the sailors love,
Going to death for duty, and trusting to God above!
Do you murmur a prayer, my brothers, when cozy and safe in bed,
For men like these, who are ready to die for a wreck off Mumbles Head?
It didn't go well with the lifeboat! 'twas a terrible storm that blew!
And it snapped the rope in a second that was flung to the drowning crew;
And then the anchor parted--'twas a tussle to keep afloat!
But the father stuck to the rudder, and the boys to the brave old boat.
Then at last on the poor doomed lifeboat a wave broke mountains high!
"God help us now!" said the father. "It's over, my lads! Good-bye!"
Half of the crew swam shoreward, half to the sheltered caves,
But father and sons were fighting death in the foam of the angry waves.
Up at a lighthouse window two women beheld the storm,
And saw in the boiling breakers a figure,--a fighting form;
It might be a gray-haired father, then the women held their breath;
It might be a fair-haired brother, who was having a round with death,
It might be a lover, a husband, whose kisses were on the lips
Of the women whose love is the life of men going down to the sea in ships.
They had seen the launch of the lifeboat, they had seen the worst, and more,
Then, kissing each other, these women went down from the lighthouse,
straight to shore.
There by the rocks on the breakers these sisters, hand in hand,
Beheld once more that desperate man who struggled to reach the land.
'Twas only aid he wanted to help him across the wave,
But what are a couple of women with only a man to save?
What are a couple of women? well, more than three craven men
Who stood by the shore with chattering teeth, refusing to stir--and then
Off went the women's shawls, sir; in a second they're torn and rent,
Then knotting them into a rope of love, straight into the sea they went!
"Come back!" cried the lighthouse-keeper, "For God's sake, girls,
come back!"
As they caught the waves on their foreheads, resisting the fierce attack.
"Come back!" moaned the gray-haired mother, as she stood by the angry sea,
"If the waves take you, my darlings, there's nobody left to me!"
"Come back!" said the three strong soldiers, who still stood faint and pale,
"You will drown if you face the breakers! you will fall
if you brave the gale!"
"_Come back!_" said the girls, "we will not! go tell it to all the town,
We'll lose our lives, God willing, before that man shall drown!"
"Give one more knot to the shawls, Bess! give one strong clutch
of your hand!
Just follow me, brave, to the shingle, and we'll bring him safe to land!
Wait for the next wave, darling! only a minute more,
And I'll have him safe in my arms, dear, and we'll drag him to the shore."
Up to the arms in the water, fighting it breast to breast,
They caught and saved a brother alive. God bless them! you know the rest--
Well, many a heart beat stronger, and many a tear was shed,
And many a hearty cheer was raised for "The Women of Mumbles Head!"
A REASONABLE REQUEST.
MR. DARNELLE ASKS HIS FIANCEE A FAVOR, AFTER THEIR ENGAGEMENT.
"It is so sudden, Mr. Darnelle."
"I know it is," responded the young man gently.
He stood before her with his weight resting easily on one foot, his left
elbow on the mantel-piece, his right arm behind him, and his whole attitude
one of careless, unstudied ease and grace, acquired only by long and
patient practice.
"I know it is," he repeated. "Measured by ordinary standards and by the
cold conventionalities of society, it is indeed sudden. We have known each
other only twenty-four hours. Until 8.25 o'clock last night neither of us
had ever heard of the other. Yet with the heart one day is as one hundred
years. Could we have known one another better, darling," he went on, with a
tremor in his cultivated B flat baritone voice, "if we had attended the
theatre, the concert, the church and the oyster parlor together for a dozen
seasons? Does not your heart beat responsive to mine?"
"I will not pretend to deny, Mr. Darnelle," replied the young lady, with a
rich blush mantling her cheek and brow, "that your avowal moves me
strangely."
"I know it--I feel it," he responded eagerly. "Love is not the slow,
vegetable-like growth of years. It does not move in its course with the
measured, leisurely step of a man working by the day. It springs up like a
mushr--like an electric flash. It takes instant possession. It does not
need to be jerked in, as it were. It needs not the agonized coaxing of--of
a young man's first chin whiskers, my darling. It is here! You will forgive
my presumption, will you not, and speak the words that tremble on your
lips--the words that will fill my cup of joy to overflowing?"
* * * * *
The evening had passed like a beautiful dream. Mr. Darnelle, admonished by
the clock that it was time to go, had risen reluctantly to his feet, and
stood holding the hand of his beautiful betrothed.
"My love," he said, in eager passionate accents, "now that you have blessed
my life with a measureless, ineffable joy, and made all my future radiant
with golden hope, you will not think I am asking too much if I plead for
just one favor?"
"What is it?" shyly responded the lovely maiden.
"Will you please tell me your first name?"
RESIGNATION.
BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.
There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside howso'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!
The air is full of farewells to the dying;
And mournings for the dead;
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying.
Will not be comforted!
Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.
We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.
There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
She is not dead,--the child of our affection,--
But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.
In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.
Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.
Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,
Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
May reach her where she lives.
Not as a child shall we again behold her;
For when with raptures wild
In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child;
But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.
And though at times impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
That cannot be at rest,--
We will be patient and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay;
By silence sanctifying, not concealing,
The grief that must have way.
AN AFFECTIONATE LETTER.
_Tipperary, Ireland, September the ten._
MY DEAR NEPHEW:
I have not heard anything of you sens the last time I wrote ye. I have
moved from the place where I now live, or I should have written to you
before. I did not know where a letter might find you first, but I now take
my pen in hand to drop you a few lines, to inform you of the death of your
own living uncle, Kilpatrick. He died very suddenly after a long illness of
six months. Poor man, he suffered a great deal. He lay a long time in
convulsions, perfectly quiet and speechless, and all the time talking
incoherently and inquiring for water.
I'm much at a loss to tell you what his death was occasioned by, but the
doctor thinks it was caused by his last sickness, for he was not well ten
days during his confinement.
His age ye know jist as well as I can tell ye; he was 25 years old last
March, lacking fifteen months; and if he had lived till this time he would
be just six months dead.
N. B. Take notis. I inclose to you a tin pound note, which ye father sends
to ye unbeknown to me. Your mother often speaks of ye; she would like to
send ye the brindle cow, and I would inclose her to ye but for the horns.
I would beg of ye not to break the sale of this letter until two or three
days after ye read it, for thin ye will be better prepared for the
sorrowful news.
PATRICK O'BRANIGAN.
To Michael Glancy, No. -- Broad Street, United States of Ameriky, State of
Massachusetts, in Boston.
THE WHISTLING REGIMENT.
BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
[In the recitation which follows, the effect can be
heightened by an accompaniment of the piano and by the
whistling of strains from Annie Laurie, adapting the
style to the sentiment of the verses.
The melody should be played very softly, except where
the battle is alluded to, and the whistling should be
so timed that the last strain of Annie Laurie may end
with the words, "would lay me down and die." The beat
of the drums can be introduced with good effect, but it
is better to omit it unless it can be done skilfully.
It is well to state before reciting, that the escape
described is not entirely imaginary as many prisoners
made their way through underground passages from rebel
prisons, during the Civil War. An asterisk (*) at the
end of a line denotes where the whistling should
commence, and a dagger (*t) where it should
cease.]
When the North and South had parted, and the boom of the signal gun
Had wakened the Northern heroes, for the great deeds to be done,
When the nation's cry for soldiers had echoed o'er hill and dale,
When hot youth flushed with courage, while the mother's cheeks turned pale,
In the woods of old New England, as the day sank down the west,
A loved one stood beside me, her brown head on my breast.
From the earliest hours of childhood our paths had been as one,
Her heart was in my keeping, though I knew not when 'twas won;
We had learned to love each other, in a half unspoken way,
But it ripened to full completeness when the parting came, that day;
Not a tear in the eyes of azure, but a deep and fervent prayer,
That seemed to say: "God bless you, and guard you, everywhere."
At the call for volunteers, her face was like drifted snow,
She read in my eyes a question and her loyal heart said, "Go."
As the roll of the drums drew nearer, through the leaves of the
rustling trees,*
The strains of Annie Laurie were borne to us, on the breeze.
Then I drew her pale face nearer and said: "Brave heart and true,
Your tender love and prayers shall bring me back to you."
And I called her _my_ Annie Laurie and whispered to her that I
For her sweet sake was willing--to lay me down and die.
And I said: "Through the days of danger, that little song shall be
Like a pass word from this hillside, to bring your love to me."[*t]
Oh! many a time, at nightfall, in the very shades of death,
When the picket lines were pacing their rounds with bated breath,*
The lips of strong men trembled and brave breasts heaved a sigh,
When some one whistled softly, "I'd lay me down and die."[*t]
The tender little ballad our watchword soon became,
And in place of Annie Laurie, each had a loved one's name.
In the very front of battle, where the bullets thickest fly,*
The boys from old New England oftimes went rushing by,
And the rebel lines before us gave way where'er we went,
For the gray coats fled in terror from the "whistling regiment."
Amidst the roar of the cannon, and the shriek of the shells on high,
Yon could hear the brave boys whistling: "I'd lay me down and die."[*t]
But, Alas! Though truth is mighty and right will at last prevail,
There are times when the best and bravest, by the wrong outnumbered, fail;
And thus, one day, in a skirmish, but a half-hour's fight at most,
A score of the whistling soldiers were caught by the rebel host.
With hands fast tied behind us, we were dragged to a prison pen,
Where, hollow-eyed and starving, lay a thousand loyal men.
No roof but the vault of Heaven, no bed save the beaten sod,
Shut in from the world around us, by a wall where the sentries trod.
For a time our Annie Laurie brought cheer to that prison pen;
A hope to the hearts of the living; a smile to the dying men.
But the spark of Hope burned dimly, when each day's setting sun
Dropped the pall of night o'er a comrade, whose sands of life were run.
One night, in a dismal corner, where the shadows darkest fell,
We huddled close together to hear a soldier tell
The tales of dear New England and of loved ones waiting there,
When, Hark! a soft, low whistle, pierced through the heavy air,*
And the strain was Annie Laurie. Each caught the other's eye,
And with trembling lips we answered, "I'd lay me down and die."
From the earth, near the wall behind us, a hand came struggling through,
With a crumpled bit of paper for the captive boys in blue.
And the name! My God! 'Twas Annie, my Annie, true and brave,
From the hills of old New England she had followed me to save.[*t]
"Not a word or a sign, but follow, where'er you may be led,
Bring four of your comrades with you," was all hat the writing said.
Only eight were left of the twenty and lots were quickly thrown,
Then our trembling fingers widened the space where the hand had shown.
With a stealthy glance at the sentries, the prisoners gathered round,
And the five whom fate had chosen stole silent underground,
On, on, through the damp earth creeping, we followed our dusky guide,
Till under a bank o'erhanging we came to the river side:
"Straight over," a low voice whispered, "where you see yon beacon light,"
And ere we could say, "God bless you," he vanished into the night.
Through the fog and damp of the river, when the moon was hid from sight,
With a fond, old, faithful negro, brave Annie had crossed each night;
And the long, dark, narrow passage had grown till we heard close by
The notes of the dear old pass-word: "I'd lay me down and die."
With oarlocks muffled and silent, we pushed out into the stream,
When a shot rang out on the stillness. We could see by the musket gleam,
A single sentry firing, but the balls passed harmless by,
For the stars had hid their faces and clouds swept o'er the sky.
O God! How that beacon burning, brought joy to my heart that night,*
For I knew whose hand had kindled that fire to guide our flight.
The new-born hope of freedom filled every arm with strength,
And we pulled at the oars like giants till the shore was reached at length.
We sprang from the skiff, half-fainting, once more in the land of the free,
And the lips of my love were waiting to welcome and comfort me.
In my wasted arms I held her, while the weary boys close by
Breathed low, "For Annie Laurie, I'd lay me down and die."[*t]
THE MINISTER'S GRIEVANCES.
"Brethren," said the aged minister, as he stood up before the church
meeting on New Year's Eve, "I am afraid we will have to part. I have
labored among you now for fifteen years, and I feel that that is almost
enough, under the peculiar circumstances in which I am placed. Not that I
am exactly dissatisfied; but a clergyman who has been preaching to sinners
for fifteen years for five hundred dollars a year, naturally feels that he
is not doing a great work when Deacon Jones, acting as an officer of the
church, pays his last quarter's salary in a promissory note at six months,
and then, acting as an individual, offers to discount it for him at ten per
cent if he will take it part out in clover seed and pumpkins.
"I feel somehow as if it would take about eighty-four years of severe
preaching to prepare the deacon for existence in a felicitous hereafter.
Let me say, also, that while I am deeply grateful to the congregation for
the donation party they gave me on Christmas, I have calculated that it
would be far more profitable for me to shut my house and take to the woods
than endure another one. I will not refer to the impulsive generosity which
persuaded Sister Potter to come with a present of eight clothes pins; I
will not insinuate anything against Brother Ferguson, who brought with him
a quarter of a peck of dried apples of the crop of 1872; I shall not allude
to the benevolence of Sister Tynhirst, who came with a pen-wiper and a tin
horse for the baby; I shall refrain from commenting upon the impression
made by Brother Hill, who brought four phosphorescent mackerel, possibly
with an idea that they might be useful in dissipating the gloom in my
cellar. I omit reference to Deacon Jones' present of an elbow of stove-pipe
and a bundle of tooth-picks, and I admit that when Sister Peabody brought
me sweetened sausage-meat, and salted and peppered mince-meat for pies, she
did right in not forcing her own family to suffer from her mistake in
mixing the material. But I do think I may fairly remark respecting the case
of Sister Walsingham, that after careful thought I am unable to perceive
how she considered that a present of a box of hair-pins to my wife
justified her in consuming half a pumpkin pie, six buttered muffins, two
platefuls of oysters, and a large variety of miscellaneous food, previous
to jamming herself full of preserves, and proceeding to the parlor to join
in singing 'There is rest for the weary!' Such a destruction of the
necessaries of life doubtless contributes admirably to the stimulation of
commerce, but it is far too large a commercial operation to rest solely
upon the basis of a ten-cent box of hair-pins.
"As for matters in the church, I do not care to discuss them at length. I
might say much about the manner in which the congregation were asked to
contribute clothing to our mission in Senegambia; we received nothing but
four neckties and a brass breast-pin, excepting a second-hand carriage-whip
that Deacon Jones gave us. I might allude to the frivolous manner in which
Brother Atkinson, our tenor, converses with Sister Priestly, our soprano,
during my sermons, and last Sunday he kissed her when he thought I was not
looking; I might allude to the absent-mindedness which has permitted
Brother Brown twice lately to put half a dollar on the collection-plate and
take off two quarters and a ten-cent piece in change; and I might dwell
upon the circumstance that while Brother Toombs, the undertaker, sings 'I
would not live alway' with professional enthusiasm that is pardonable, I do
not see why he should throw such unction into the hymn 'I am unworthy
though I give my all,' when he is in arrears for two years' pew-rent, and
is always busy examining the carpet-pattern when the plate goes round. I
also----"
But there Brother Toombs turned off the gas suddenly, and the meeting
adjourned full of indignation at the good pastor. His resignation was
accepted unanimously.
THE GOOD OLD WAY.
John Mann had a wife who was kind and true,--
A wife who loved him well;
She cared for the house and their only child;
But if I the truth must tell,
She fretted and pined because John was poor
And his business was slow to pay;
But he only said, when she talked of change,
"We'll stick to the good old way!"
She saw her neighbors were growing rich
And dwelling in houses grand;
That she was living in poverty,
With wealth upon every hand;
And she urged her husband to speculate,
To risk his earnings at play;
But he only said, "My dearest wife,
We'll stick to the good old way."
For he knew that the money that's quickly got
Is the money that's quickly lost;
And the money that stays is the money earned
At honest endeavor's cost.
So he plodded along in his honest style,
And he bettered himself each day,
And he only said to his fretful wife,
"We'll stick to the good old way."
And at last there came a terrible crash,
When beggary, want, and shame
Came down on the homes of their wealthy friends,
While John's remained the same;
For he had no debts and he gave no trust,
"My motto is this," he'd say,--
"It's a charm against panics of every kind,--
'Tis stick to the good old way!"
And his wife looked round on the little house
That was every nail their own,
And she asked forgiveness of honest John
For the peevish mistrust she had shown;
But he only said, as her tearful face
Upon his shoulder lay,
"The good old way is the best way, wife;
We'll stick to the good old way."
EXTRACT FROM BLAINE'S ORATION ON JAMES A. GARFIELD.
[Delivered in the City of Washington, Monday, February
27, 1882.]
On the morning of Saturday, July 2, the President was a contented and happy
man--not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly happy. On his
way to the railroad station, to which he drove slowly, in conscious
enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of leisure and
keen anticipation of pleasure, his talk was all in the grateful and
congratulatory vein. He felt that after four months of trial his
administration was strong in its grasp of affairs, strong in popular favor
and destined to grow stronger; that grave difficulties confronting him at
his inauguration had been safely passed; that trouble lay behind him and
not before him; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now
recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted and at times
almost unnerved him; that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most
cheerful associations of his young manhood and to exchange greetings with
those whose deepening interest had followed every step of his upward
progress from the day he entered upon his college course until he had
attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his countrymen.