Ah! what will become of that great nation

yonder,

If the maddening clouds that wander, Threatening all the heaven, should gather in their sight?

Darkening in the azure sky,

With their shadows rising highWhat if they extinguish all the vivid light?

With a fixed and earnest eye that noble country seeing,

Whence my children drew their being I do tremble for those stars upon the blue; life is blent

For my very

With the brightness they have lent, And if they are waning, I am waning too.

But I listen to the Northern armies cheering,
Their huzzas and plaudits hearing,

Which they raise on high to herald thy increase;
And their ardor I do share,

Lifting up my humble prayer

For their liberty, their glory, and their peace.

And to thee, Señor, the hope of all the nation,
My good cheer and salutation

I would send amid the mighty billows' roar

Send across the solemn sea,

To America the free,

Wafted by the breezes of the Spanish shore.

SONG OF THE SOUTHERN WOMEN.

O ABRAHAM LINCOLN! we call thee to

hark

To the song we are singing, we Joans of Arc; While our brothers are bleeding we fear not to bleed,

We'll face the Red Horror should there be need By our brothers we'll stand on the terrible field, By our brothers we'll stand, and we'll ask for no shield;

By our brothers we'll stand as a torch in the dark, To shine on thy treachery, we Joans of Arc.

Behold our free plumes of the wild eagle dark, Behold them, and take our white brows for thy

mark;

We fear not thy cannon, we heed not thy drum,

The deeper thy thunder the stronger we come.

Is woman a coward? No, no, she is brave!
Oh! nothing but love ever made her a slave;
In home's happy circle she's poetry's lark,

But threaten that home and she's Joan of Arc.

O Abraham Lincoln! we call thee to hark,
Thou Comet of Satan! thou Boast of the Dark!
Take off thy red shadow from Washington's land-
Back! back! for thy footstep is slavery's brand.
Future-eyed prophecy cries to thee, Down!
For she sees on thy forehead the hope of a Crown;
The fire that sleeps in our Southern eyes dark,
Would lighten in battle-we're Joans of Arc.

JULIA MILDRED.

APOCALYPSE.

"All Hail to the Stars and Stripes !"

LUTHER C. LADD.*

STRAIGHT to his heart the bullet crushed,

Down from his breast the red blood gushed, And o'er his face a glory rushed.

*Killed at Baltimore, Md., April 19, 1861.

A sudden spasm rent his frame,
And in his ears there went and came
A sound as of devouring flame.

Which in a moment ceased, and then The great light clasped his brows again, So that they shone like Stephen's, when

Saul stood apart a little space,

And shook with shuddering awe to trace God's splendor settling o'er his face.

Thus, like a king, erect in pride,

Raising his hands to heaven, he cried,

"All hail the Stars and Stripes!" and died.

Died grandly; but, before he fell,
(O blessedness ineffable !)
Vision apocalyptical

Was granted to him, and his eyes,
All radiant with glad surprise,
Looked forward through the centuries,

And saw the seeds that sages cast
In the world's soil in cycles past,
Spring up and blossom at the last :

Saw how the souls of men had grown,

And where the scythes of Truth had mown, Clear space for Liberty's white throne;

Saw how, by sorrow tried and proved,
The last dark stains had been removed
For ever from the land he loved.

Saw Treason crushed, and Freedom crowned, And clamorous faction gagged and bound, Gasping its life out on the ground;

While over all his country's slopes

Walked swarming troops of cheerful hopes, Which evermore to broader scopes

Increased, with power that comprehends
The world's weal in its own, and bends
Self-needs to large, unselfish ends.

Saw how, throughout the vast extents
Of earth's most populous continents,
She dropped such rare heart-affluence,

That, from beyond the farthest seas,
The wondering peoples thronged to seize
Her proffered pure benignities;