w, no
longer _sad_, the _radiant_ Genius of Humanity.

Her vigorous arm is round a younger and less solemn form, a form of
wildering beauty, whose gold hair glitters like a nimbus in the level
rays of morning; with an irresistible impulse we take her into the
innermost folds of our hearts, we feel her to be _our own_; our banner
in her right hand sways and tosses on the fresh breeze, its stars, round
which new suns are ever clustering, throw their dazzling light upon her,
and the young eagles turning from the sun throng around her to drink the
splendor from her brighter brow. The long streamers from her girdle
float athwart the sky, their wavy lines, red, white, and blue, quiver
with delight as the wild zephyrs caress them, thrilling the air with
shifting play of passionate color. Ha! what miracle is this?--whatsoever
light may fall upon them, under what angle soever we may see them, as
were it magically woven into their warp and woof, we read the word now
graven on our hearts--UNION! Her left hand holds closely clasped to her
heart a great urn, glowing as it were an immense ruby--ah! we need no
words to tell us what the young spirit clasps so fondly to her
breast--we _feel_ it is the dust of the holy dead, who gave their lives
on the red battle field that she might live: their very ashes glow with
living fire! Her white feet rest on the sacred graves of Shiloh,
Antietam, Murfreesboro', Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain, the
Wilderness, Atlanta, Winchester, and Cedar Creek, from which she has
newly risen in her young strength and ever-growing glory.

She is the brilliant Spirit of our Nation! the new hope of all People!
Her career is ever onward with the Genius of Humanity into the enchanted
realm of the happy Future. No chains are in her white hands now. The
tired laborer rests as she smiles upon him; the bay of the bloodhound
and sharp crack of the lash cease in the white cotton field; the Indian
buries his tomahawk, no longer wounding the still ear of the forest with
his shrill war whoop; the maiden walks fearlessly free, for all men are
now her brothers; shielding her sanctity; the wife is happy, for the
husband has won her esteem, and it is no shame to crown him with her
love; and cherub-children sport around, lovely and happy as the
heaven-seraphs.

Peace to our glorious dead! Eternal honor to the martyrs of freedom!
From the sharp agonies of their true hearts springs now first to
_conscious_ birth the vi