THE YEAR.
Come, gentle Snowdrop, come; we welcome thee:
Shine, fiery Crocus, through that dewy tear!
That thou, arrayed in burnished gold, may'st be
A morning star to hail the dawning year.
Now Winter hath ta'en Summer by the hand,
And kissed her on her cheek so fair and clear;
While Spring strews bridal blossoms o'er the land
To grace the marriage of the youthful year.
The blackbird sings upon the budding spray,
I hear the clarion tones of chanticleer,
And robins chirp about from break of day,—
All pipe their carols to the opening year.
The butterfly mounts up on jewelled wing,
Risen to new life from out her prison drear:
All Nature smileth;—every living thing
Breaks forth in praises of the gladsome year.
Down in the sheltered valley, Mayflowers blow,—
Their small, sweet, odorous cups in beauty peer
Forth from their mother's breast in softened glow,
To deck the vestments of the princely year.
And splendid flowers in richly-colored dress
Will bloom when warm winds from the south shall veer:
And clustering roses in their gorgeousness
Shall form a coronet for the regal year.
Rejoice, O beauteous Earth—O shining Sea!
Rejoice, calm Summer sky, and all things dear:
Give thanks, and let your joyful singing be
An anthem for the glories of the year.
THE GREAT AMERICAN CRISIS.
PART ONE.
The American crisis, actual and impending; the causes which have led to it through the years that have passed; the consequences which must flow from it; the new responsibilities which it devolves on us as a people in the practical sphere; the new theoretical problems which it forces upon our consideration—everything, in fine, which concerns it, constitutes it a subject of the most momentous importance. The greatest experiment ever yet instituted to bring the progress of humanity to a higher plane of development is being worked out on this continent and in this age; and the war now progressing between the Northern and the Southern States is, in a marked sense, the acme and critical ordeal to which that experiment is brought.
First in order, in any methodical consideration of the subject, is the question of the causes which have led to this open outburst of collision and antagonism between the two great sections of a common country, whose institutions have hitherto been—with one remarkable exception—so similar as to be almost identical. Look at the subject as we will, the fact reveals itself more and more that the one exception alluded to is the 'head and front of this offending,' the heart and core of this gigantic difficulty, the one and sole cause of the desperate attempt now being waged to disturb and break up the process of experiment, otherwise so peacefully and harmoniously progressing, in favor of the freedom of man. There is no possibility of grappling rightly with the difficulty itself, unless we understand to the bottom the nature of the disease.
When the question is considered of the causes of the present war, the superficial and incidental features of the subject—the mere symptoms of the development of the deep-seated affection in the central constitution of our national life—are firstly observed. Some men perceive that the South were disaffected by the election of Abraham Lincoln and the success of the Republican party, and see no farther than this. Some see that the Northern philanthropists had persisted in the agitation of the subject of slavery, and that this persistency had so provoked and agitated the minds of Southern man that their feelings had become heated and irritated, and that they were ready for any rash and unadvised step. Others see the causes of the war in the prevalence of ignorance among the masses of the Southern people, the exclusion of the ordinary sources of information from their minds, the facility with which they have been imposed on by false and malignant reports of the intentions of the Northern people, or a portion of the Northern people. Others find the same causes in the unfortunate prevalence at the South of certain political heresies, as Nullification, Secession, and the exaggerated theory of State Rights.
A member of President Lincoln's cabinet, speaking of its causes, near the commencement of the war, says: