And disappear, so many stars of promise. Then,
While all men watched thy high course, wondering
If them wouldst upward sweep, or fell again,
Thee from thine orbit mad hands thought to fling;
And lo! the meteor, with its fitful light,
All on a sudden stood, and was a star,—
A radiance fixed, to glorify the night
There where the world's proud constellations are.
Boston Globe.
J. A. G.
BY JULIA WARD HOWE.
Our sorrow sends its shadow round the earth.
So brave, so true! A hero from his birth!
The plumes of Empire moult, in mourning draped,
The lightning's message by our tears is shaped.
Life's vanities that blossom for an hour
Heap on his funeral car their fleeting flower.
Commerce forsakes her temples, blind and dim,
And pours her tardy gold, to homage him.
The notes of grief to age familiar grow
Before the sad privations all must know;
But the majestic cadence which we hear
To-day, is new in either hemisphere.
What crown is this, high hung and hard to reach,
Whose glory so outshines our laboring speech?
The crown of Honor, pure and unbetrayed;
He wins the spurs who bears the knightly aid.
While royal babes incipient empire hold,
And, for bare promise, grasp the sceptre's gold,
This man such service to his age did bring
That they who knew him servant hailed him king.