To see the weapons used in this amusing fight,
By sage conservatives, to breast advancing light,-
Jest, falsehood, ridicule, and the “ almighty dollar,"
Deceiver, humbug, gracious heavens! what more

need foller?
Infidel, who lacks in faith, or else believes too much,
In spirits or in faiths, not "canonized by church.”
Alas! suit them if you can: there's only just one

way, Think just as they think and wish, and all their

rules obey!

Such are the weapons used, most weighty are they

too, Though none can call them just, or just exactly new; They scent of “ Smithfield,” dungeons, prisons, or

the stake; Of holy, sainted “MATHER,” who made the Quakers

quake And tremble for their fate, as flying on their track, He used the cat-o’nine tail soundly on their back!

Thank Heaven! that day has passed, the lash can

never more

Cut flesh of maiden down on Salisbury shore !

Or drive defenceless women from their homes away, Forsooth, because they would their Quaker homage

pay. But “ MATHER" now is dead, and

may

we evermore Have ministers, who will such arguments ignore.

The lyre must cease its strain, nor thus its theme

prolong, For prose is bad enough, much worse a prosy song; And lest your patience tire of theme or manner

terse, The Muse will no more sing in plain “ Iambic”

verse; Which though of graceful strength, of calm majestic

might, Is yet too ornate far for true poetic flight. Then cease this lyric strain in measure, flowing,

free, By stanza to the past, present, and futurity.

Then hail! to the shades of the Ages that hare

been, And the changes so vast which their passing hath They've witnessed the birth of magnificent spheres, Which now have been moving for endless years; They were present in the morn when creation

began; They have witnessed its progress through an end

less span;

They sang at the birth of the planets afar,
Which have never been seen as twinkling star;
They sang at the birth of our own solar sphere,
And still note each return of its astral year;
They sang, too, when Earth and fair Cynthia was

born; They witnessed the nuptials in Eden's blest morn; They have brought us in gladness, through changes,

unknown, But the death-god hath sealed them forever his

own!

All hail to the present, our own golden age!
Its destiny who knoweth? What savan or sage
Can divine us its fate, its marvel unseal ?
Its mystery unravel, or its fortune reveal ?
The steam car now whistles, and the lightning now

flies, The chained servant of man as it distance defies;

And man's subtle mind, spread out on the river, Makes it work like a giant, where ten thousand

wheels quiver, And thousands of spindles, thus constantly hum

ming, Sing their song to the Age, of a “Good time com

ing; When the light-flowing pen gives battle to wrong, Slaying ignorance like magic, in prose and in song. Then hail to the present! improve its glad day; For its moments are passing to oblivion for aye!

The dark vista of time, which now lies before us, How it brightens and glows in the light of the

past; Till we long to embrace the glad prospect before

us, And curse in our memory all thoughts of the past.

But let us remember that past progress was slow, That by dint of hard effort did its car only go; That ages were passed ere its spindles could hum, Or the mind's subtle thoughts through a printing.

Even He, who from heaven our race came to save, Had to die on the cross, and lay low in the grave.

And Earth has its wrongs which the future must

meet, And valiantly conquer ere the victory is complete. Then gird for the battle, the fast coming storm, Laying all on the altar of God and Reform.