VÆ VICTIS.

The States he served with honors crowned his brow,
And gave him primacy of power and trust;
The States which conquered them, elect him now
To wear a crown which hallows human dust.

The martyr's crown attends the martyr's doom,
And vengeance, baffled by her stroke extreme,
But makes immortal when she would entomb

A cause with him who was its head supreme.

A glory from his prison by the sea

Afar will shine across the waves of time,
To guide the prows of all who would be free,
Or keep through night and storm a faith sublime.

A people is immortal and can wait;

Can calmly bide the hour which God ordains;
The patient watch of ages, soon or late,

A season finds to burst a tyrant's chains.
SOUTHERN SOCIETY, BALTIMORE.

379

To the Friends of the Old Days.

BY M. C.

Fidélité est de Dieu.

OFF from the ivory keys lift your fingers,

Sweet though their glamour be, matchless their skill; Hushed be the voice in the chamber where lingers The echo of words which must ever be still.

Or, if the full heart will in song seek expression,
Oh, borrow your strains from those desolate lands

Where melody tells the long tale of oppression Unchecked, though a Czar or a viceroy commands

Tear from your garments the trappings of Fashion,
Would ye the fète of your conquerors swell,
While over the lone, silent prisoner's ration
The Chief of Confederates, is bowed in his cell?

Oh! light foot of Beauty! no longer advancing
In mazes of graceful variety, steal

Where Morning's first rays from the Christ's Cross are glancing

On worshippers prostrate in reverent appeal.

Low by the Altar where now they're kneeling,

Kneel with them, weep with them, Heaven with them

sue

That his narrow-souled lords learn the wisdom of deal

ing

That justice to him, which is mercy to you.

"Oh, the shame! oh, the shame! will be yours if forgetting

One hour, him who pines in the dungeon accursed; And wherefore he pines and for whom?-can you let in One hope to your hearts, in which he is not first?

Before dear love of wife, before dear love of kindred-
Before hopes of the later and earlier rains—
Be the thought of Monroe's lonely captive-till sun-
dered

His shackles forever, your feet are in chains.

NEW YORK FREEMAN'S JOURNAL.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

381

Jefferson Davis.

WALKER MERIWETHER BELL.

"Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee, are all with thee."

CALM martyr of a noble cause,
Upon thy form in vain

LONGFELLOW.

The Dungeon shuts its cankered jaws,
And clasps its cankered chain;
For thy free spirit walks abroad,
And every pulse is stirred;
With the old deathless glory thrill,
Whene'er thy name is heard.

The same that lit each Grecian eye,
Whene'er it rested on

The wild pass of Thermopyla

The plain of Marathon;

And made the Roman's ancient blood,
Bound fiercely as he told,
"How well Horatio kept the bridge,

In the brave days of old."

The same that makes the Switzer's heart

With silent rapture swell,

When in each Alpine height he sees

A monument to Tell:

The same that kindles Irish veins

When Emmet's name is told;

What Bruce to Caledonia is,

Kosciusko to the Pole

Art thou to us!-thy deathless fame,
With Washington entwined,
Forever, in each Southern heart

Is hallowed and enshrined ;-
And though the tyrant give thy form
To shameful death-'twere vain,
It would but shed a splendor round
The gibbet and the chain.

Only less sacred in our eyes,
Thus blest and purified,

Than the dear cross on which our Lord
Was shamed and crucified,
Would the vile gallows tree become,
And through all ages shine,

Linked with the glory of thy name,
A relic and a shrine!

METROPOLITAN RECORD.

Regulus.

MRS. MARGARET J. PRESTON.

HAVE ye no merey? Punic rage
Boasted small skill and torture when

The sternest patriot of his age

And Romans all were patriots, then-
Was doomed with his unwinking eyes
To stand beneath the fiery skies,
Until the sun-shafts pierced his brain,
And he grew blind with poignant pain,
While Carthage jeered and taunted. Yet,
When day's slow moving orb had set,
And pitying nature, kind to all,

TO THE FRIENDS OF THE OLD DAYS.

In dewy darkness bathed her hand,
And laid it on each lidless ball,

So crazed with gusts of scorching sand-
They yielded,--nor forbade the grace,
By flashing torches in his face.

Ye flash the torches !-Never night

Brings the blank dark to that worn eye;

In pitiless, perpetual light,

Our tortured Regulus must lie!

Yet tropic suns seem tender: they
Eyed not with purpose to betray;
No human vengeance, like a spear
Whetted to sharpness clean and clear,
By settled hatred, pricked its way,
Right through the bloodshot iris! Nay,
Yeave refined the torment!

Glare

A little longer through the bars

At the bayed lion in his lair--

And God's dear hand from out the stars,

To shame inhuman man, may cast

Its shadow o'er those lids, at last,

And end their aching, with the blest,
Signet and seal of perfect rest!

THE LAND WE LOVE.

Prometheus Vinctus.

BY FANNY DOWNING, NORTH CAROLINA.

PROMETHEUS on the cold rock bound,
The vulture at his heart,

In you, oh! Southern chief, has found
A fitting counterpart.

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