_From London Fun_
The hand of an Assassin, glowing red,
Shot like a firebrand through the western sky;
And stalwart Abraham Lincoln now is dead!
O! felon heart that thus could basely dye
The name of southerner with murderous gore!
Could such a spirit come from mortal womb?
And what possessed it that not heretofore
It linked its coward mission with the tomb?
Lincoln! thy fame shall sound through many an age,
To prove that genius lives in humble birth;
Thy name shall sound upon historic page,
For 'midst thy faults we all esteemed thy worth.
Gone art thou now! no more 'midst angry heat
Shall thy calm spirit rule the surging tide,
Which rolls where two contending nations meet,
To still the passion and to curb the pride.
Nations have looked and seen the fate of kings,
Protectors, emperors, and such like men;
Behold the man whose dirge all Europe sings,
Now past the eulogy of mortal pen!
He, like a lighthouse, fell athwart the strand;
Let curses rest upon the assassin's hand.
[Illustration: THE FUNERAL OF LINCOLN