2.

The flags of war like storm-birds fly,
The charging trumpets blow;
Yet rolls no thunder in the sky,
No earthquake strives below.

And, calm and patient, Nature keeps
Her ancient promise well,
Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps
The battle's breath of hell.

And still she walks in golden hours
Through harvest-happy farms,
And still she wears her fruits and flowers
Like jewels on her arms.

What mean the gladness of the plain,
This joy of eve and morn,
The mirth that shakes the beard of grain
And yellow locks of corn?

Ah! eyes may well be full of tears,
And hearts with hate are hot;
But even-paced come round the years,
And Nature changes not.

She meets with smiles our bitter grief,
With songs our groans of pain;
She mocks with tint of flower and leaf
The war-field's crimson stain.

Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear
Her sweet thanksgiving-psalm;
Too near to God for doubt or fear,
She shares the eternal calm

She knows the seed lies safe below
The fires that blast and burn;
For all the tears of blood we sow
She waits the rich return.

She sees with clearer eye than ours
The good of suffering born,--
The hearts that blossom like her flowers
And ripen like her corn.

Oh, give to us, in times like these,
The vision of her eyes;
And make her fields and fruited trees
Our golden prophecies!

Oh, give to us her finer ear!
Above this stormy din,
We, too, would hear the bells of cheer
Ring peace and freedom in!

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_The Tabernacle_: A Collection of Hymn-Tunes, Chants, Sentences, Motets,
and Anthems, adapted to Public and Private Worship, and to the Use of
Choirs, Singing-Schools, Musical Societies, and Conventions. Together
with a Complete Treatise on the Principles of Musical Notation. By B.F.
BAKER and W.O. PERKINS. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

This thoroughly prepared book will prove of much service in those
departments of musical study and practice for which it is intended. The
style of church-music throughout the country has undergone material
changes within the last five-and-twenty years. In the cities and larger
towns, such societies as can afford the expense have established
quartette choirs of trained vocalists, who deliver the hymns and anthems
of the service to selections from the music of the great masters, whic