ly foundation, immovable stands;
There struggles, alarms, and disquietudes cease,
And the blissfulest balm of the spirit is--peace!
Small trial 'twill seem when our perils are past,
And we enter the house of our Father at last,--
Light trouble, that here, in the night of our stay,
The blast swept our wilderness lodging away!

"The children--dear hearts!--it is touching to see
My Beverly's beautiful kindness to me;
So buoyant his mein--so heroic--resigned--
The boy has the soul of his father, I find!
Not a childish complaint or regret have I heard,--
Not even from Archie, a petulant word:
Once only--a tear moistened Sophy's bright cheek:
'_Papa has no home now!_'--'twas all she could speak.

"A stranger I wander midst strangers; and yet
I never,--no, not for a moment forget
That my heart has a home,--just as real, as true,
And as warm as if Beechenbrook sheltered me too.
God grant that this refuge from sorrow and pain--
This blessedest haven of peace, may remain!
And, then, though disaster, still sharper, befall,
I think I can patiently bear with it all:
For the rarest, most exquisite bliss of my life
Is wrapped in a word, Douglass ... I am your wife!"

IX.

When fierce and fast-thronging calamities rush
Resistless as destiny o'er us, and crush
The life from the quivering heart till we feel
Like the victim whose body is broke on the wheel--
When we think we have touched the far limit at last,
--One throe, and the point of endurance is passed--
When we shivering hang on the verge of despair--
There still is capacity left us to bear.

The storm of the winter, the smile of the Spring,
No respite, no pause, and no hopefulness bring;
The demon of carnage still breathes his hot breath,
And fiercely goes forward the harvest of death.

Days painfully drag their slow burden along;
And the pulse that is beating so steady and strong,
Stands still, as there comes, from the echoing shore
Of the winding and clear Rappahannock, the roar
Of conflict so fell, that the silvery flood
Runs purple and rapid and ghastly with blood.

--Grand army of martyrs!--though victory waves
Them onward, her march must be over _their_ graves:
They feel it--they know it,--yet steadier each
Close phalanx moves into the desperate breach:
Their step