Over weak and suffering brothers with a tender care they hung, And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and northern tongue. Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours; Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh its Eden flowers; From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, And still Thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air. W TRUE ELOQUENCE. HEN public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech further than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness, are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then, patriotism is eloquent; then, self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object-this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence-it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action. EUGENE ARAM'S DREAM. TWAS WAS in the prime of summer-time, And four-and-twenty happy boys Came bounding out of school: There were some that ran, and some that leapt, Like troutlets in a pool. Away they sped, with gamesome minds, And souls untouch'd by sin; To a level mead they came, and there Like sportive deer they coursed about, Turning to mirth all things of earth, But the usher sat remote from all, His hat was off, his vest apart, To catch heaven's blessed breeze; For a burning thought was in his brow, And his bosom ill at ease: So he lean'd his head on his hands, and read The book between his knees. Leaf after leaf he turn'd it o'er, Nor ever glanced aside, For the peace of his soul he read that book In the golden eventide: Much study had made him very lean, And pale, and leaden-eyed. At last he shut the ponderous tome, Then leaping on his feet upright, Now up the mead, then down the mead, And, lo! he saw a little boy "My gentle lad, what is 't you readRomance or fairy fable? Or is it some historic page, Of kings and crowns unstable?" The young boy gave an upward glance"It is "The Death of Abel?'" The usher took six hasty strides, And down he sat beside the lad, And, long since then, of bloody men Of lonely folk cut off unseen, And how the sprites of injured men He told how murderers walked the earth Beneath the curse of Cain With crimson clouds before their eyes, "And well," quoth he, "I know, for truth, Their pangs must be extreme Woe, woe, unutterable woe Who spill life's sacred stream! For why? Methought, last night, I wrought A murder in a dream! "One that had never done me wrong A feeble man, and old; I led him to a lonely field The moon shone clear and cold: 'Now here,' said I, 'this man shall die, And I will have his gold!' "Two sudden blows with ragged stick, One hurried gash with a hasty knife- "Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone, And yet I fear'd him all the more, There was a manhood in his look, That murder could not kill! "And, lo! the universal air Seem'd lit with ghastly flame: And call'd upon his name. "O God! it made me quake to see "My head was like an ardent coal, My wretched, wretched soul, I knew, A dozen times I groan'd; the dead "And now, from forth the frowning sky, I heard a voice- the awful voice "I took the dreary body up, "Down went the corpse with hollow plunge, And vanish'd in the pool; Anon I cleansed my bloody hands, And wash'd my forehead cool, And sat among the urchins young, That evening in the school. "O heaven! to think of their white souls, And mine so black and grim! I could not share in childish prayer, Nor join in evening hymn: Like a devil of the pit I seem'd, 'Mid holy cherubim! |