of human progress is
_never backward_, and that we might as soon hope to recall the middle
ages as build up into prosperity the 'patriarchal' old slave South.

Every rebel's slave is free. Free on paper, if you will--theoretically
free; but is _that_ nothing? How many years will slavery, or the
Southern system in its integrity, exist side by side with a rapidly
growing free country no longer recognizing the existence of 'the
institution?' How many months, in fact, _when_ we shall have and
hold--as we are absolutely determined to do--the whole west bank of the
Mississippi and the confederate ports; which, by the way, _should_ have
all been secured at the outset at _any cost_? Let us win or lose in the
field, we shall still, thanks to our fleet, hem them in. And will not
_that_, with mere waiting, prove a complete victory? Whatever financial
crises may be before the North, it will ever possess, in spite of the
most terrible sufferings, its enormous recuperative power, and its old
ability for hard work. But how is the exhausted, ruined South to arise,
save through Northern aid? Will its poor whites labor in factories? They
are expected to form a permanent standing army. The negroes? The day of
slavery is passing away rapidly. Let the South gain battles, if it
will--they are only defeats in disguise; and in the long run it will be
found that God willed this war to be long and bitter, that by it the
last stronghold of the wrongs of man might be the more thoroughly
exhausted.

* * * * *

THE GOLDEN ROD.

Upon the waves that rise and die
Along the banks of Severn's river,
Amidst the blue of broken sky,
I saw thy half-drawn image quiver
In changing gleams of golden light,
Now broadly spread, now vanished quite.

Late Golden Rod! in thought I deem
I still shall find thee swaying there,
As if some naiad of the stream
Gave to the wind her yellow hair,
Or, leaning o'er the margin, sought
The restless shape the waters wrought.

Though swaying, yet in quietude,
Thy beauty touched my very soul,
Like the calm eye of womanhood,
In stillness keeping all control.
And lo! as under sudden spell,
Thy presence shadowed all the dell.

The valley took October's crown,
I found thy glory still the same;
The sumach flung his red leaves down,
And lit his winter crest of flame;
The early elm and maple gave
Their b