So shalt thou find the use of life, and see | To make me own this hind of princes Thy Lord, at set of sun, Approach and say, "Well done!" This at the last: They clutch the sapless fruit, Ashes and dust of the Dead Sea, who suit Their course of life to compass happiness; TOM TAYLOR. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. (From "THE LONDON PUNCH.") You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier, You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, Broad for the self-complacent British sneer, His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face. His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair, His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, His lack of all we prize as debonair, Of power or will to shine, of art to please. You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh, Judging each step, as though the way were plain; Reckless, so it could point its paragraph, Of chief's perplexity or people's pain. peer, This rail-splitter a true-born king of men. My shallow judgment I had learned to rue, Noting how to occasion's height he rose, How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true, How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows. How humble, yet how hopeful he could be. How in good fortune and in ill the same: Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he, Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame. He went about his work,-such work as few Ever had laid on head and heart and hand, As one who knows, where there's a task to do, Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command; Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow, That God makes instruments to work If but that will we can arrive to know, his will, Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill. So he went forth to battle on the side That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's, As in his peasant boyhood he had plied His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights,-- Rough culture, but such trees large | And with the martyr's crown crownest a fruit may bear, If but their stocks be of right girth and grain. So he grew up, a destined work to do, And lived to do it; four long-suffering years' Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through, And then he heard the hisses change to cheers. life E'en through the awful gloom, That light of love our guiding star shall be; Our spirits shall not dread Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly Friend! Guardian! Saviour! which doth strife, striven; lead to thee! No more shall the war-cry sever, Or the winding rivers be red; They banish our anger forever When they laurel the graves of our dead! | Sends scorn, and offers insult to our taste.* An unknown bark, from an unknown | Those faces brighten from the years In rising suns long set in tears; A city of the world's gray prime, The Arachne-threads of Purpose stream |