uth's defence unto death be speedy,
And win, as christian, and fall, as man!
No worldly samples
Of honors jading
Shall wreath your temples
With laurels fading;
But bright, eternal, shall thee entrance
The blessed holies' inheritance.

What worth had faith, if it lay not resting,
A bright-eyed pearl, in the heart enclosed,
In heav'nward gazes its sparkle vesting,
When crumbling shell leaves the core exposed?
Sweet slumber follows
When pain expires....
And creak the gallows,
And flame the fires,
Lo, martyr! heaven shall open thence,
And your Redeemer shall recompense!

What worth had virtue, if life were reckoned,
With matter's glimmering spark as checked?
Thou _first Gustavus_! Thou _Great_, the _second_!
Thou free and valiant Engelbrekt!
And all ye sage,
And ye tender hearted,
Extolled an age--
Or forgot departed!
What worth had wisdom and heart and fame,
If but the graveyard had been your aim?

What worth had honor, whose voice imposes:
For love of duty your life to spend,--
If on the favors, foul mob disposes
By fouler leaders, she did depend?
Now beam her features
With peace depicted,
Though time's mere creatures
A sigh inflicted;
For dust of time cannot soil that street
Of starry splendor, where move her feet.

What worth had happiness, joy and gladness,
Those links of love in its purest scope,
If, when they sever, in gloomy sadness,
You could not join them by rays of hope?
What then were life?
But a mental stigma,
An empty strife,
An unsolved enigma!
A heartless, cruel, Uriah note,
Which God, in anger, for mankind wrote.

A hoary Jacob his Joseph loses,
And Jonathan from his David parts,
And woe-filled bosom a grief discloses,
To which no solace the world imparts!
And Rachel, weeping,
Her children mourneth;
Her sorrow keeping
She comfort scorneth!
For, gone forever is all she prized
Which mother's heart could have idolized.

But, God is love--so, with hope, look thither,
Ye hearts despondent, and take relief!
The grain, you laid in the ground to wither,
Shall rise to harvests of golden sheaf.
O