NUMBER ONE.

Yes! the world is full of sorrow

And dismay;

Joy lives always in to-morrow!
Pain, to-day!

Sweet phantoms rise to cheer our bleak existence,
And lure us onward with uplifted hands,
We follow-and they fade into the distance,
As fades the mirage upon desert sands.

What boots it, that the earth makes show of joy?
That roses bloom, and trees grow green in spring,
That the soft grass springs up without annoy,
That skies are blue, and birds forever sing?
There are more weeds than flowers,-
More sad than sunny hours!

And though the leaves be musical,
They all must wither soon, and fall!
And though the green grass waves-
Down under it are graves!

And, alas! they have no souls,

Those little birds, whose melody so rolls.

What boots it, that we ring the merry laugh,

Sing the song, and crack the jest ;

That we seek love-deem kisses more than chaff,
Or hold pleasure worth the quest?
And what boots it, that some glide
Through the world with little care?
And what boots it, that the bride
Is so jubilant and fair?

The pleasure that we follow
Like our laugh is hollow-hollow

As a bell

That now rings us to a wedding-with a chime;
And now buries us in sorrow for a time-

With a knell!

And the jest seldom slips,

But it strikes a tender chord!

And a kiss was on the lips

Of the wretch who sold his Lord!

Do you sing?-the sweetest songs
Tell of sorrows and of wrongs.
Do you love?-perfect love
Only lives in realms above;
And the careless are the light,-

Light of heart, and light of head:
And ye robe the bride in white,-
And, in white, ye shroud the dead.

-Nassau Magazine.

EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH OF PARK GODWIN ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

The great captain of our cause-ABRAHAM LINCOLN―smitten by the basest hand ever upraised against human innocence, is gone, gone, gone! He who had borne the heaviest of the brunt in our four long years of war, whose pulse beat livelier, whose eyes danced brighter than any others, when "The storm drew off,

Its scattered thunders groaning round the hills,"

in the supreme hour of his joy and glory was struck down. One who, great in himself, as well as by position, has suddenly departed. There is something startling, ghastly, awful, in the manner of his going off. But the chief poignancy of our distress is not for the greatness fallen, but for the goodness lost. Presidents have died before: during this bloody war we have lost many eminent generals-Lyon, Baker, Kearney, Sedgwick, Reno, and others; we have lost lately our finest scholar, publicist, orator. Our hearts still bleed for the companions, friends, brothers who "sleep the sleep that knows no waking," but no loss has been comparable to his, who was our supremest leader,-our safest counsellor-our wisest friend-our dear father. Would you know what Lincoln was, look at this vast metropolis, covered with the habiliments of woe! Never in human history has there been so universal, so spontaneous, so profound an expression of a nation's bereavement.

Yet we sorrow not as those who are without hope. Our chief is gone, but our cause remains; dearer to our hearts, because he is now become the martyr; consecrated by his sacrifice; more widely accepted by all parties; and fragrant and lovely forevermore in the memories of all the good and the great, of all lands, and for all time. The rebellion, which began in the blackest treachery, to be ended in the foulest assassination; this rebellion, accursed in its motive, which was to rivet the shackles of slavery on a whole race for all the future; accursed in its means, which have been "red ruin and the breaking up of laws," the overthrow of the mildest and blessedest governments, and the profuse shedding of brother's blood by brother's hands; accursed in its accompaniments of violence, cruelty, and barbarism, and is now doubly accursed in its final act of cold-blooded murder.

Cold-blooded, but impotent, and defeated in its own purposes! The frenzied hand which slew the head of the gov

ernment, in the mad hope of paralyzing its functions, only drew the hearts of the people together more closely to strengthen and sustain its power. All the North once more, without party or division, clenches hands around the common altar: all the North swears a more earnest fidelity to freedom; all the North again presents its breasts as the living shield and bulwark of the nation's unity and life. Oh! foolish and wicked dream, oh! insanity of fanaticism, oh! blindness of black hate-to think that this majestic temple of human liberty, which is built upon the clustered columns of free and independent states, and whose base is as broad as the continent-could be shaken to pieces, by striking off the ornaments of its capital. No! this nation lives, not in one man nor in a hundred men, however eminent, however able, however endeared to us; but in the affections, the virtues, the energies, and the will of the whole American people.

THE SLEEPING SENTINEL.-FRANCIS DE HAES JANVIER.

The incidents here woven into verse relate to William Scott, a young soldier from the State of Vermont, who, while on duty as a sentinel at night, fell asleep, and, having been condemned to die, was pardoned by the President. They form a brief record of his humble life at home and in the field, and of his glorious death.

"Twas in the sultry summer-time, as war's red records show, When patriot armies rose to meet a fratricidal foe~ When, from the North and East and West, like the upheav

ing sea,

Swept forth Columbia's sons, to make our country truly free.
Within a prison's dismal walls, where shadows veiled decay- -
In fetters, on a heap of straw, a youthful soldier lay :
Heart-broken, hopeless, and forlorn, with short and feverish
breath,

He waited but the appointed hour to die a culprit's death.

Yet, but a few brief weeks before, untroubled with a care,
He roamed at will, and freely drew his native mountain air-
Where sparkling streams leap mossy rocks, from many a
woodland font,

And waving elms, and grassy slopes, give beauty to Vermont.
Where, dwelling in a humble cot, a tiller of the soil,
Encircled by a mother's love, he shared a father's toil-
Till, borne upon the wailing winds, his suffering country's cry
Fired his young heart with fervent zeal, for her to live or die
Then left he all: a few fond tears, by firmness half concealed
A blessing, and a parting prayer, and he was in the field-¬

The field of strife, whose dews are blood, whose breezes war's hot breath,

Whose fruits are garnered in the grave, whose husbandman is death!

Without a murmur, he endured a service new and hard; But, wearied with a toilsome march, it chanced one night, on guard,

He sank, exhausted, at his post, and the gray morning found
His prostrate form-a sentinel asleep upon the ground.

So in the silence of the night, aweary, on the sod,
Sank the disciples, watching near the suffering Son of God;
Yet, Jesus, with compassion moved, beheld their heavy eyes,
And though betray'd to ruthless foes, forgiving, bade them rise.
But God is love,-and finite minds can faintly comprehend
How gentle mercy, in His rule, may with stern justice blend;
And this poor soldier, seized and bound, found none to justify,
While war's inexorable law decreed that he must die.

'Twas night. In a secluded room, with measured tread, and slow,

A statesman of commanding mien paced gravely to and fro;
Oppressed, he pondered on a land by civil discord rent;
On brothers armed in deadly strife:-it was the President.
The woes of thirty millions filled his burdened heart with grief;
Embattled hosts, on land and sea, acknowledged him their
chief;

And yet, amid the din of war, he heard the plaintive cry
Of that poor soldier, as he lay in prison, doomed to die.
'Twas morning.-On a tented field, and through the heated
haze,

Flashed back, from lines of burnished arms, the sun's effulgent blaze;

While, from a sombre prison-house, seen slowly to emerge,
A sad procession, o'er the sward, moved to a muffled dirge.
And in the midst, with faltering step,and pale and anxious face,
In manacles, between two guards, a soldier had his place.
A youth-led out to die;-and yet, it was not death, but shame,
That smote his gallant heart with dread, and shook his man-
ly frame.

Still on, before the marshall'd ranks, the train pursued its way
Up to the designated spot, whereon a coffin lay-
His coffin! And with reeling brain, despairing-desolate-
He took his station by its side, abandoned to his fate.

Then came across his wavering sight strange pictures in the air:
He saw his distant mountain home; he saw his mother there;
He saw his father bowed with grief, thro' fast-declining years;
He saw a nameless grave; and then, the vision closed-in tears.

Yet once again. In double file advancing, then, he saw
Twelve comrades, sternly set apart to execute the law-
But saw no more: his senses swam-deep darkness settled
round-

And, shuddering, he awaited now the fatal volley's sound. Then suddenly was heard the noise of steeds and wheels approach,

And, rolling through a cloud of dust, appeared a stately coach. On, past the guards, and through the field, its rapid course was bent,

Till, halting, 'mid the lines was seen the nation's President.

He came to save that stricken soul, now waking from despair;
And from a thousand voices rose a shout which rent the air!
The pardoned soldier understood the tones of jubilee,
And, bounding from his fetters, blessed the hand that made
him free.

"Twas Spring.-Within a verdant vale, where Warwick's crystal tide

Reflected, o'er its peaceful breast, fair fields on either side-
Where birds and flowers combined to cheer a sylvan solitude-
Two threatening armies, face to face, in fierce defiance stood.
Two threatening armies! One invoked by injured Liberty-
Which bore above its patriot ranks the Symbol of the Free;
And one, a rebel horde, beneath a flaunting flag of bars,
A fragment, torn by traitorous hands, from Freedom's Stripes
and Stars.

A sudden shock which shook the earth, 'mid vapor dense and dun,

Proclaimed, along the echoing hills, the conflict had begun; And shot and shell,athwart the stream with fiendish fury sped, To strew among the living lines the dying and the dead.

Then, louder than the roaring storm, pealed forth the stern command,

"Charge! soldiers, charge!" and, at the word, with shouts, a fearless band,

Two hundred heroes from Vermont, rushed onward, through the flood,

And upward o'er the rising ground, they marked their way in blood.

The smitten foe before them fled, in terror, from his postWhile, unsustained, two hundred stood, to battle with a host! Then turning as the rallying ranks,with inurd'rous fire replied, They bore the fallen o'er the field, and through the purple tide. The fallen! And the first who fell in that unequal strife, Was he whom mercy sped to save when justice claimed his life