BURIAL OF LINCOLN.

For hark!

PEACE! Let the long procession come,
the mournful, muffled drum,
The trumpet's wail afar;
And see the awful car!

Peace! Let the sad procession go,
While cannon boom, and bells toll slow;
And go, thou sacred car,
Bearing our woe afar!

Go, darkly borne, from State to State,
Whose loyal, sorrowing cities wait
To honor, all they can,
The dust of that good man!

Go, grandly borne, with such a train
As greatest kings might die to gain :

The just, the wise, the brave
Attend thee to the grave!

And you, the soldiers of our wars,
Bronzed veterans, grim with noble scars,
Salute him once again,

Your late commander, — slain !

DIED FEBRUARY 16, 1857.

ALOFT upon an old basaltic crag,

Around the secret of the mystic zone,
A mighty nation's star-bespangled flag
Flutters alone,

And underneath, upon the lifeless front
Of that drear cliff, a simple name is traced;
Fit type of him who, famishing and gaunt,
But with a rocky purpose in his soul,
Breasted the gathering snows,

Clung to the drifting floes,

By want beleaguered, and by winter chased, Seeking the brother lost amid that frozen waste.

Not many months ago we greeted him,

Crowned with the icy honors of the North, Across the land his hard-won fame went forth, And Maine's deep woods were shaken limb by limb. His own mild Keystone State, sedate and prim, Burst from decorous quiet as he came.

Hot Southern lips, with eloquence aflame, Sounded his triumph. Texas, wild and grim, Proffered its horny hand. The large-lunged West, From out his giant breast,

Yelled its frank welcome. And from main to main, Jubilant to the sky,

Thundered the mighty cry,

-

HONOR TO KANE !

In vain, - in vain beneath his feet we flung The reddening roses! All in vain we poured The golden wine, and round the shining board Sent the toast circling, till the rafters rung With the thrice-tripled honors of the feast! Scarce the buds wilted and the voices ceased Ere the pure light that sparkled in his eyes, Bright as auroral fires in Southern skies,

Faded and faded! And the brave young heart That the relentless Arctic winds had robbed Of all its vital heat, in that long quest For the lost captain, now within his breast More and more faintly throbbed. His was the victory; but as his grasp Closed on the laurel crown with eager clasp, Death launched a whistling dart; And ere the thunders of applause were done His bright eyes closed forever on the sun! Too late, too late the splendid prize he won In the Olympic race of Science and of Art! Like to some shattered berg that, pale and lone, Drifts from the white North to a Tropic zone, And in the burning day Wastes peak by peak away,

Till on some rosy even

It dies with sunlight blessing it; so he Tranquilly floated to a Southern sea,

And melted into heaven!

Pole

Gazes with dead face on the seas that roll

We will not weep for him who died so well; But we will gather round the hearth, and tell

What tale of peril and self-sacrifice!
Prisoned amid the fastnesses of ice,

With hunger howling o'er the wastes of snow!
Night lengthening into months; the ravenous
floe

Crunching the massive ships, as the white bear
Crunches his prey. The insufficient share
Of loathsome food;

The lethargy of famine; the despair

Urging to labor, nervelessly pursued ; Toil done with skinny arms, and faces hired Like pallid masks, while dolefully behind Glimmered the fading embers of a mind! That awful hour, when through the prostrate band Delirium stalked, laying his burning hand

Upon the ghastly foreheads of the crew; The whispers of rebellion, faint and few At first, but deepening ever till they grew Into black thoughts of murder, such the throng Of horrors bound the hero. High the song Should be that hymns the noble part he played! Sinking himself, yet ministering aid

To all around him. By a mighty will
Living defiant of the wants that kill,
Because his death would seal his comrades' fate;
Cheering with ceaseless and inventive skill
Those polar waters, dark and desolate.
Equal to every trial, every fate,

He stands, until spring, tardy with relief,
Unlocks the icy gate,

And the pale prisoners thread the world once more,
To the steep cliff's of Greenland's pastoral shore
Bearing their dying chief!

Time was when he should gain his spurs of gold From royal hands, who wooed the knightly state; The knell of old formalities is tolled,

And the world's knights are now self-consecrate. No grander episode doth chivalry hold

In all its annals, back to Charlemagne, Than that lone vigil of unceasing pain, Faithfully kept through hunger and through cold, By the good Christian knight, Elisha Kane ! FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN.

It was fifty years ago,

Upon the Gallic Sea,

He bore the banner of the free,

And fought the fight whereof our children know,-
The deathful, desperate fight!
Under the fair moon's light

The frigate squared, and yawed to left and right.
Every broadside swept to death a score!
Roundly played her guns and well, till their fiery
ensigns fell,

Neither foe replying more.

All in silence, when the night-breeze cleared the air,

Old Ironsides rested there, Locked in between the twain, and drenched with blood.

One the grisly King of Terrors; one a Bourbon, with his errors, late to conscience-clearing

set.

Well his fevered pulse may flutter, and the priests their mass may mutter with such fervor

as they may:

Cross and chrysm, and genuflection, mop and mow, and interjection, will not frighten Death away.

By the dying despot sitting, at the hard heart's portals hitting, shocking the dull brain to work,

Death makes clear what life has hidden, chides what life has left unchidden, quickens

truth life tried to burke.

He but ruled within his borders after Holy Church's orders, did what Austria bade him do ;

By their guidance flogged and tortured; highborn men and gently nurtured chained with crime's felonious crew.

What if summer fevers gripped them, what if winter freezings nipped them, till they rotted in their chains?

He had word of Pope and Kaiser; none could holier be or wiser; theirs the counsel, his the reins.

So he pleads excuses eager, clutching, with his fingers meagre, at the bedclothes as he speaks;

But King Death sits grimly grinning at the Bourbon's cobweb-spinning, -as each cobweb-cable breaks.

And the poor soul, from life's eylot, rudderless, without a pilot, drifteth slowly down the dark;

While 'mid rolling incense vapor, chanted dirge, and flaring taper, lies the body, stiff and stark.

PUNCH.

BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

NOT a drum was heard, nor a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly, at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin inclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay, like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.

GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 1682. SOME of their chiefs were princes of the land; In the first rank of these did Zimri stand; A man so various, that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome: Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong; Was everything by starts, and nothing long; But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,

Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ,
With something new to wish or to enjoy!
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes:
So over-violent or over-civil,

That every man with him was God or Devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late;
He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laughed himself from court, then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;
For, spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom, and wise Achitophel.
Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left no faction, but of that was left.
JOHN DRYDEN.

WHITEFIELD.

FROM "HOPE." LEUCONOMUS (beneath well-sounding Greek I slur a name a poet may not speak) Stood pilloried on infamy's high stage, And bore the pelting storm of half an age; The very butt of slander, and the blot For every dart that malice ever shot. The man that mentioned him at once dismissed All mercy from his lips, and sneered and hissed; His crimes were such as Sodom never knew, And perjury stood up to swear all true; His aim was mischief, and his zeal pretence, His speech rebellion against common sense; A knave, when tried on honesty's plain rule, And when by that of reason, a mere fool; The world's best comfort was, his doom was past; Die when he might, he must be damned at last.

Now, truth, perform thine office; waft aside The curtain drawn by prejudice and pride, Reveal (the man is dead) to wondering eyes This more than monster in his proper guise.

He loved the world that hated him; the tear
That dropped upon his Bible was sincere;
Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife,
His only answer was a blameless life;
And he that forged and he that threw the dart
Had each a brother's interest in his heart.
Paul's love of Christ and steadiness unbribed
Were copied close in him, and well transcribed.
He followed Paul; his zeal a kindred flame,
His apostolic charity the same.

Like him crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas,
Forsaking country, kindred, friends, and ease;
Like him he labored, and like him, content
To bear it, suffered shame where'er he went.
Blush, Calumny ! and write upon his tomb,
If honest Eulogy can spare thee room,
Thy deep repentance of thy thousand lies,
Which, aimed at him, has pierced the offended

skies;

- he would but cite a few, Rhymes on Blenheim,"

He had written praises of a regicide;
He had written praises of all kings whatever;
He had written for republics far and wide,

And then against them bitterer than ever;
For pantisocracy he once had cried

OG.

SHADWELL, THE DRAMATIST.

Now stop your noses, readers, all and some, For here's a tun of midnight work to come. Og, from a treason-tavern rolling home Round as a globe, and liquored every chink, Goodly and great he sails behind his link : With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,

his skin.

Sporus, that mere white curd of asses' milk?
Satire of sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight

In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,
And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks,
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,
Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,
Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies;
His wit all seesaw, between that and this.
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing! that, acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,
Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board,
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus the rabbins have exprest,
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest;
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

ALEXANDER Pope.

The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull, With this prophetic blessing, "Be thou dull; Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight Fit for thy bulk; do anything but write : Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men; A strong nativity but for the pen ! Still thou mayst live, avoiding pen and ink": Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink, I see, I see, 't is counsel given in vain, For treason botched in rhyme will be thy bane; Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck, 'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck; Why should thy metre good King David blast? A psalm of his will surely be thy last. A double noose thou on thy neck dost pull For writing treason and for writing dull. To die for faction is a common evil, But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.

JOHN DRYDEN.

ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE.

A WANDERER, Wilson, from my native land,
Remote, O Rae, from godliness and thee,
Where rolls between us the eternal sea,
Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand,
Beyond the broadest Scotch of London Wall,
Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call,
Across the wavy waste between us stretched,
A friendly missive warns me of a stricture,
Wherein my likeness you have darkly etched ;
And though I have not seen the shadow sketched,
Thus I remark prophetic on the picture.

I guess the features: - in a line to paint
Their moral ugliness, I'm not a saint.
Not one of those self-constituted saints,
Quacks-not physicians - in the cure of souls,
Censors who sniff out moral taints,