NORTH AND SOUTH.
North and South the war cries come:
Sounds the trumpet, beats the drum.
Hosts contending, marshalled foes
Battle while the red blood flows.
Two great armies whose Ideal
Bursts into the earnest Real.
Ideals twain, on battle height
Flaming into radiant light!
One, is Freedom over all;
One, is Slavery's tyrant thrall:
These are written on the plain
'Mid the Battle's fiery rain.
These the Powers that must contend
To the dark and bitter end.
Look upon the Nation's dead!
Lo, the blood of martyrs shed!
Dying that our Country may
Know her Resurrection day!
What shall be the Traitor's gain?
Endless scorn, undying pain.
Ever o'er the giant wrong
Sings the Right her triumph song.
Yes, as sure as God doth reign
Right the mastery shall obtain!
Over all these beauteous lands
These two Brothers clasp their hands.
These two Brothers now at strife
Make one heart, one soul, one life!
This at last will be their song:
'One forever, free, and strong.'
Northmen, ye have not in hate
Closed the heart's fraternal gate!
Ye have not for greed, nor gold,
Forged the slave-chains manifold!
But in patience ye have wrought
Out your Godlike, freeborn thought!
Ye have toiled that man might be
Clothed with truth and liberty.
God hath answered from the skies;
Bids you for His own arise!
Now the work is at your door:
Help His meek and suffering poor!
There are hearts uncomforted,
Weeping o'er the battle-dead.
There are wounded brave ones here:
Bring your hearts of kindness near!
Freedmen shiver at your gate—
Let them not forgotten wait!
Bind the wounded heart that bleeds;
Mould your speeches into deeds!
This is what all true hearts say:
'Glorious is our work to-day!'
LITERARY NOTICES.
Dreamthorp; A Book of Essays written in the Country. By Alexander Smith, Author of 'A Life Drama,' 'City Poems,' etc. Boston: J.E. Tilton & Company. For sale by Walter Low, 823 Broadway. New York.
We have been very unexpectedly charmed with this volume. Inverted and fantastical as he may be in his poems, Mr. Smith's essays are fresh, natural, racy, and genial. They are models in their way, and we wish our contributors would study them as such. Each essay is complete in itself; every sentence full of interest; there is no straining for effect, no writing to astonish a blasé audience, no show of unwonted erudition; but the light of a poet's soul, the sunshine of a calm and loving heart, are streaming and brooding over all these gentle pages. Knowledge is indeed within them, but it has ripened into wisdom; culture has matured into wine with the summer in its glow—yet, notwithstanding its many excellences, the book is so quiet, true, and natural, we know not what favor it may find among us. We were pleased to see that in 'A Shelf in My Book-case' our own Hawthorne had a conspicuous place. 'Twice-Told Tales' is an especial favorite with Mr. Smith, as it indeed is with most imaginative people. His analysis of Hawthorne is very fine, and it is like meeting with an old friend in a foreign land to come across the name so dear to ourselves in these pages from across the sea. Equally pleasant to us is the Chapter on Vagabonds. 'A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind,' and, confessing ourselves to be one of this genus, we dwell with delight on our author's genial description of their naive pleasures and innocent eccentricities. Mr. Smith says: 'The true vagabond is to be met with among actors, poets, painters. These may grow in any way their nature dictates. They are not required to conform to any traditional pattern. A little more air and light should be let in upon life. I should think the world had stood long enough under the drill of Adjutant Fashion. It is hard work; the posture is wearisome, and Fashion is an awful martinet and has a quick eye, and comes down mercilessly on the unfortunate wight who cannot square his toes to the approved pattern, or who appears upon parade with a darn in his coat or with a shoulder belt insufficiently pipe-clayed. It is killing work. Suppose we try 'standing at ease' for a little?'
Scenes and Thoughts in Europe. By George H. Calvert, Author of 'The Gentleman.' Boston: Little, Brown & Company. A new edition of a work first published in 1846.
Mr. Calvert is a writer of considerable vigor, but we think these 'Scenes and Thoughts' seriously injured by the hatred of Catholicity which breathes everywhere through them. We miss in them the large, liberal, and loving spirit which characterized 'The Gentleman.' Charity is the soul of wisdom, and we can never rightly appreciate that which we hate. Mr. Calvert totally ignores all the good and humanizing effects of the Catholic Church, and sees only the faults and follies of those who minister at her altars. Not the least cheering example of the progress we are daily making, is the improvement in this respect in our late books of travels. We have ceased to denounce in learning to describe aright, and feel the pulsations of a kindred heart, though it beat under the scarlet robe of the cardinal, the dalmatic of the priest, or the coarse serge of the friar. 'My son, give me thy heart,' says our God. If we can deem from a life of self-abnegation a man has so done, we have ceased inquiring into the dogmas of his creed. It is the heart and not the intellect which is required, 'Little children, love one another,' is the true law of life, progress, and human happiness.
Soundings From the Atlantic, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.