were offered us. It was almost
well to have suffered, so much beautiful feeling did it bring out.

A day or two at the fort, waiting for official permission to return to
our homes, and we were on our way,--the week seeming, as we looked back
upon it, like some wild dream. One thing only appeared real: our little
vessel was lost, and we, who, in months gone by, had learned to love
her, felt a strange pang go through us as we remembered that never more
might we tread her deck, or gather in her little cabin at evening.

We had left her behind us, one more treasure added to the priceless
store which Ocean so jealously hides. The Cumberland and Congress went
first; the little boat that avenged their loss has followed; in both
noble souls have gone down. Their names are for history; and so long as
we remain a people, so long will the work of the Monitor be remembered,
and her story told to our children's children.

* * * * *

LYRICS OF THE STREET.

V.

THE DARKENED HOUSE.

One year ago, this dreary night,
This house, that, in my way,
Checks the swift pulses of delight,
Was cordial glad, and gay.

The household angels tended there
Their ivy-cinctured bower,
And by the hardier plant grew fair
A lovely lily-flower.

The skies rained sunshine on its head,
It throve in summer air:
"How straight and sound!" the father said;
The mother said, "How fair!"

One little year is gathering up
Its glories to depart;
The skies have left one marble drop
Within the lily's heart.

For growth and bloom no more avails
The Seasons' changing breath;
With sudden constancy it feels
The sculpture-touch of Death

But from its breast let golden rays,
Immortal, break and rise,
Linking the sorrow-clouded days
With dawning Paradise.

* * * * *

AMERICA THE OLD WORLD.

First-born among the Continents, though so much later in culture and
civilization than some of more recent birth, America, so far as her
physical history is concerned, has been falsely denominated the _New
World_. Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters, hers the
first shore washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth beside; and
while Europe was represented only by islands rising here and there above
the sea, America already stretched an unbroken line of land from Nova
Scotia to the far West.

In the p