ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES T. TORREY.

WOE worth the hour when it is crime

To plead the poor dumb bondman's cause,

When all that makes the heart sublime,

The glorious throbs that conquer time,
Are traitors to our cruel laws!

He strove among God's suffering poor
One gleam of brotherhood to send ;
The dungeon oped its hungry door

To give the truth one martyr more,

Then shut, and here behold the end!

O Mother State! when this was done,

No pitying throe thy bosom gave; Silent thou saw'st the death-shroud spun, And now thou givest to thy son

The stranger's charity, a grave.

Must it be thus for ever? No!

The hand of God sows not in vain ; Long sleeps the darkling seed below, The seasons come, and change, and go, And all the fields are deep with grain.

Although our brother lie asleep,

Man's heart still struggles, still aspires ; His grave shall quiver yet, while deep Through the brave Bay State's pulses leap Her ancient energies and fires.

When hours like this the senses' gush
Have stilled, and left the spirit room,

It hears amid the eternal hush

The swooping pinions' dreadful rush,

That bring the vengeance and the doom;

Not man's brute vengeance, such as rends

What rivets man to man apart, God doth not so bring round his ends, But waits the ripened time, and sends His mercy to the oppressor's heart.

8

REMEMBERED MUSIC.

A FRAGMENT.

THICK-rushing, like an ocean vast
Of bisons the far prairie shaking,

The notes crowd heavily and fast

As surfs, one plunging while the last

Draws seaward from its foamy breaking.

Or in low murmurs they began,

Rising and rising momently,

As o'er a harp Æolian

A fitful breeze, until they ran

Up to a sudden ecstasy.

1840.

And then, like minute-drops of rain

Ringing in water silverly,

They lingering dropped and dropped again,

Till it was almost like a pain

To listen when the next would be.