And know you, Tom, there's naught so sweet
As homage shown in mute surmise.
Bravely your arm in battle strove

Freely, for Freedom's sake you gave it;
It has perished, but a nation's love
In proud remembrance will save it.

Go to your sweetheart, then, forthwith-
You're a fool for staying so long-
Woman's love you will find no myth,

But a truth, living, tender and strong.
And when around her slender belt

Your left is clasped in fond embrace,
Your right will thrill, as if it felt,
In its grave, the usurper's place.

As I look through the coming years
I see a one-armed married man;
A little woman, with smiles and tears,
Is helpling as hard as she can
To put on his coat, pin his sleeve-
Tie his cravat, and cut his food;

And I say, as these fancies I weave,
"That is Tom, and the woman he wooed."

The

years roll on and then I see

A wedding picture bright and fair;
I look closer, and it's plain to me
That is Tom with the silver hair.

He gives away the lovely bride,
And the guests linger loth to leave
The house of him in whom they pride

Brave Tom old with the empty sleeve.

SOUTHERN ILLUSTRATED NEWS.

England's Neutrality.

A PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE.

BY JOHN R. THOMPSON, VIRGINIA.

ALL ye who with credulity the whispers hear of fancy, Or yet pursue with eagerness Hope's wild extravagancy, Who dream that England soon will drop her long miscalled Neutrality,

And give us with a hearty shake, the hand of Nationality,

Read, as we give, with little fault of statement or omis

sion,

The next debate in Parliament on Southern Recogni

tion;

They're all so much alike, indeed, that one can write it off, I see,

As truly as the Times report, without the gift of proph

esy.

Not yet, not yet to interfere, does England see occasion, But treats our good Commissioner with coldness and evasion;

Such coldness in the premises that really 'tis refrig

erant

To think that two long years ago, she called us a bellig

erent.

But further Downing Street is dumb, the Premier deaf

to reason,

As deaf as is the Morning Post, both in and out of

season;

The working men of Lancashire are all reduced to beg

gary,

And yet they will not listen unto Roebuck or to Greg

ory,

"Or any other man,' to-day, who counsels interfering, While all who speak on t'other side obtain a ready hearing

As per example Mr. Bright, that pink of all propriety, That meek and mild disciple of the blessed Peace Society.

แ

'Why let 'em fight," says Mr. Bright, "those Southerners I hate 'em,

I hope the Black Republicans will soon exterminate 'em;

If Freedom can't Rebellion crush, pray tell me what's the use of her?"

And so he chuckles o'er the fray as gleefully as Luci

fer.

Enough of him; an abler man demands our close attention

The Maximus Apollo of strict Non Intervention.

With pitiless severity, though decorous and calm his

tone,

Thus speaks the "old man eloquent," the puissant Earl of Palmerston:

"What though the land run red with blood; what though the lurid flashes

Of cannon light at dead of night, a mournful heap of ashes

Where many an ancient mansion stood? what though the robber pillages,

The sacred home, the house of God, in twice a hundred villages?

What though a fiendish, nameless wrong, that makes revenge a duty

Is daily done" (O Lord, how long) "to tenderness and beauty?"

(And who shall tell this deed of hell, how deadlier far a curse it is

Than even pulling temples down and burning universi

ties?)

"Let arts decay, let millions fall, for aye let Freedom

perish,

With all that in the Western World men fain would love and cherish;

Let Universal Ruin there become a sad reality:

We cannot swerve, we must persevere our rigorous Neutrality.

O, Pam! Oh, Pam! hast ever read what's writ in holy

pages,

How blessed the Peacemakers are, God's children of the Ages?

Perhaps you think the promise sweet was nothing but a platitude;

'Tis clear that you have no concern in that divine beati

tude.

But "hear! hear! hear!" another peer, that mighty man of muscle,

Is on his legs, what slender pegs! ye noble Earl of

Russell;

Thus might he speak, did not of speech his shrewd reserve the folly see,

And thus unfold the subtle plan of England's secret policy:

"John Bright was right! Yes, let 'em fight, these fools across the water,

"Tis no affair at all of ours, their carnival of slaughter! The Christian world indeed may say we ought not to allow it, sirs,

But still 'tis music in our ears, this roar of Yankee howitzers.

"A word or two of sympathy, that costs us not a

penny,

We give the gallant Southerners, the few against the many;

We say their noble fortitude, of final triumph presages, And praise in Blackwood's Magazine, Jeff Davis and his messages

"Of course we claim the shining fame of glorious Stonewall Jackson,

Who typifies the English race, a sterling Anglo-Saxon; To bravest song his deeds belong, to Clio and Melpo

(And why not for a British stream demand the Chickahominy?)

"But for the cause in which he fell we cannot lift a fin

ger,

'Tis idle on the question any longer here to linger; 'Tis true the South has freely bled, her sorrows are

Homéric, oh!

Her case is like to his of old who journeyed unto Jericho