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honored, men wicked enough, either secretly to betray them unto death, or openly to seek their overthrow by lawless violence. The Republic of England had its Monk; the Republic of France had its Bonaparte; the Republic of Rome had its Cæsar and its Cataline, and the Saviour of the world had his Judas Iscariot. It cannot be necessary that I should declare to you, for you know them well, who they are whose parricidal swords are now unsheathed against the Republic of the United States. Their names are inscribed upon a roll of infamy that can never perish. The most distinguished of them were educated by the charity of the Government on which they are now making war. For long years they were fed from its table, and clothed from its wardrobe, and had their brows garlanded by its honors. They are the ungrateful sons of a fond mother, who dandled them upon her knee, who lavished upon them the gushing love of her noble and devoted nature, and who nurtured them from the very bosom of her life; and now, in the frenzied excesses of a licentious and baffled ambition, they are stabbing at that bosom with the ferocity with which the tiger springs upon his prey. The President of the United States is heroically and patriotically struggling to baffle the machinations of these most wicked men. I have unbounded gratification in knowing that he has the courage to look traitors in the face, and that, in discharging the duties of his great office, he takes no counsel of his fears. He is entitled to the zealous support of the whole country, and may I not add without offence, that he will receive the support of all who justly appreciate the boundless blessings of our free institutions.

XII.

THE HEART OF THE WAR.

Peace in the clover-scented air,

And stars within the dome;
And underneath, in dim repose,
A plain New-England home,
Within, a murmur of low tones

And sighs from hearts oppressed,

Merging in prayer, at last, that brings
The balm of silent rest.

I've closed a hard day's work, Marty,-
The evening chores are done;
And you are weary with the house,
And with the little one.
But he is sleeping sweetly now,

With all our pretty brood;
So come and sit upon my knee,
And it will do me good.

Oh, Marty! I must tell you all
The trouble in my heart,
And you must do the best you can
To take and bear your part.
You've seen the shadow on my face,
You've felt it day and night;
For it has filled our little home,
And banished all its light.

I did not mean it should be so,
And yet I might have known
That hearts that live as close as ours
Can never keep their own.

But we are fallen on evil times,
And, do whate'er I may,

My heart grows sad about the war,
And sadder every day.

I think about it when I work,

And when I try to rest,

And never more than when your head

Is pillowed on my breast;

For then I see the camp-fires blaze,

And sleeping men around,

Who turn their faces towards their homes, And dream upon the ground.

I think about the dear, brave boys,

My mates in other years,

Who pine for home and those they love,

*

Till I am choked with tears.

With shouts and cheers they marched away

On glory's shining track,

But, ah! how long, how long they stay!

How few of them come back!

One sleeps beside the Tennessee,
And one beside the James,
And one fought on a gallant ship

And perished in its flames.

And some, struck down by fell disease,
Are breathing out their life;
And others, maimed by cruel wounds,
Have left the deadly strife.

Ah, Marty! Marty! only think
Of all the boys have done
And suffered in this weary war!
Brave heroes, every one!

Oh! often, often in the night,

I hear their voices call:

❝ Come on and help us!

Is it right

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Thro' her soft disheveled hair, a maniac did stare, b stare, stare!
At a distance, down the street, making music with their feet,
Came the soldiers from the wars, all embellished with their scars,

e To the tapping of a drum, of a drum;

To the pounding and the sounding of a drum !

d Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!

e The woman heaves a sigh, and a fire fills her eye.

When she hears the distant drum, she cries, f'Here they come! here they come!'

Then, clutching fast the grating, with eager, nervous waiting,

See, she looks into the air, through her long and silky hair,

For the echo of a drum, of a drum;

For the cheering and the hearing of a drum !

Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!

g And nearer, nearer, nearer, comes, more distinct and clearer,

The rattle of the drumming; shrieks the woman, 'He is coming,

He is coming now to me; quick, drummer, quick, till I see !'

And her eye is glassy bright, while she beats in mad delight

To the echo of a drum, of a drum;

To the rapping, tapping, tapping of a drum!

Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!

& Now she sees them, in the street, march along with dusty feet,
As she looks through the spaces, gazing madly in their faces;
And she reaches out her hand, j screaming wildly to the band;
But her words, like her lover, are lost beyond recover,

'Mid the beating of a drum, of a drum;

'Mid the clanging and the banging of a drum!

Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!

So the pageant passes by, and the woman's flashing eye
Quickly loses all its stare, and fills with a tear, with a tear;
As, sinking from her place, with her hands upon her face,
'Hear!' she weeps and sobs as mild as a disappointed child;
Sobbing, 'He will never come, never come!

Now nor ever, never, never, will he come

With his drum, with his drum, with his drum! drum, drum, drum!'

Still the drummer, up the street, beats his distant, dying beat,

And she shouts, within her cell, m Ha! they're marching down to hell,

And the devils dance and wait at the open iron gate:

Hark! it is the dying sound, as they march into the ground,

To the sighing and the dying of the drum!

To the throbbing and the sobbing of the drum!

Of a drum, of a drum, of a drum! drum, drum, drum!'

All the music of the sub-vocal M, may be brought out in reading this selection. Begin slow in the narrative voice, with such action as will represent the jail to the audience on the right. b Slow and slightly aspirate. c Musical and measured. d Prolong the M sound in imitation of the drum; marching time. e Lower pitch; slow movement, with feeling. High pitch; personation, then narrative with gesture. Close the stanza as the first, prolonging the M element in the last line. Repetitions require change of pitch. Increase on these words. h Shriek this personation; continue little lower pitch, but with animation; close this stanza more rapidly than the others; represent the soldiers marching past. i High pitch and animated. Very high. Low pitch; slow, with feeling. Close this line with tremor voice-and personation same-with much emotion. m Very loud, with action. Low and slow, with vanishing sound, as if the drum sound was in the distance.

XIV.

THE DUTY OF THE FUTURE.

T. CORWIN-1860.

Let us, above all, keep our Constitution inviolate, and the Union which it created, unbroken. By the lights that they give us, with the aids of an enlightened religion, and an ever-improving Christian philosophy, let us march onward and onward in the great highway of social progress. Let us always keep in the advancing car of that progress our book of constitutions and our Bible. Like the Jews of old, let the ark of the covenant be advanced to the front in our march. With these to guide us, I feel the proud assurance that our free principles will take their way through all coming time; and before them I do believe that the cloven footed altars of oppression, all over the world, will fall down, as Dagon of old fell down, and was shivered to pieces in the presence of the ark of the living God. But if we halt in this great exodus of the nations; if we are broken into inconsiderable fragments, and ultimately dispersed, through our follies of this day, what imagination can compass the enormity of our crime! What would the world say of this unpardonable sin? Rather than this we would pray the kind Father of all, even his wicked children, to visit us with the last and worst of all the afflictions that fall on sin and sinful man. Better for us would it be that the fruitful earth should be smitten for a season with barrenness and become dry dust and refuse its annual fruits; better that the heavens for a time should become brass, and the ear of God deaf to our prayers; better that famine, with her cold and skinny fingers, should lay hold upon the throats of our wives and children; better that God should commission the angel of destruction to go forth over the whole land, scattering pestilence and death from his dusky wing, than that we should prove faithless to our trust, and by that means our light should be quenched, our liberties destroyed, and all our bright hopes die out in that night which knows no coming dawn.

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