_En dat Virginia
quintam._ The fifth crown had its price, even for a 'usurper.']

[Footnote 14: Virginia was the other of which he was writing.]

THE EARLY ARBUTUS.

Give me water, give air, give me light!
Oh, as life in my heart ebbs away,
I pine through the dim, chilly night,
I long for the sun's kindly ray!
Even I, a poor little Arbutus!

I was plucked from my beautiful earth,
And my soul it then quitted its form;
What since has my life e'er been worth?
Ah, would I had never been born!
Thus I sigh, a poor little Arbutus!

Now to man in my anguish I cry:
Ah, but what for a sigh does he care?
To heaven I now raise my eye,
And mourn in my futile despair!
Even I, a poor, dying Arbutus!

Ah, a life for a life--it is just!
But a life for a nothing, oh, cruel!
Still low must I languish in dust?
And is there for me no renewal?
Ah, for me, poor, broken Arbutus!

Into elements now I resolve,
Yet to life I still cling with each breath;
As slowly away I dissolve,
Life's sweeter as closer to death!
Unto me, but a little Arbutus!

Too precocious the life which I bore,
Which I drew sweetly in with each breath!
The fulness of life did no more
Than ripen a fruitage for death,
Within me, a too early Arbutus!

THE THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR.

Few persons, at the beginning of this unhappy war, anticipated its
prolongation to the present day. The projected rebellion was so daring
and sudden in its appearance, so utterly causeless and reckless in its
pretexts and objects, that an astounded people could scarcely believe it
to be serious in its character and destined to give them any real and
protracted trouble. The rebels themselves fed the credulity of their
deluded victims with the promise of a peaceful separation, or, at the
worst, of a short and triumphant contest, to be speedily followed by a
career of boundless prosperity, expansion, greatness, and glory. And, on
our part, when we came at length to understand that war was inevitable,
we were scarcely less sanguine in our anticipation of easy victory and
of the instant restoration of that noble Government, which the domestic
enemy, with the most wicked ambition, sought to overthrow and utterly
destroy. Confidently and even boastingly, we contrasted our strength
with the weakness of the insurrection; we numbered our men in comparison
with those