"When the sword glitters o'er the judge's head,
And fear has coward churchmen silenced,
Then is the poet's time; 't is then he draws,
And single fights forsaken virtue's cause;
He, when the wheel of empire whirleth back,
And though the world's disjointed axle crack,
Sings still of ancient rights and better times,
Seeks suffering good, arraign successful crimes."
The sense of grand poetry, read by the light of this event, is brought out distinctly like an invisible writing held to the fire:—
"All heads must come
To the cold tomb,—
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust."
We have heard that the Boston lady who recently visited our hero in prison found him wearing still the clothes, all cut and torn by sabres and by bayonet thrusts, in which he had been taken prisoner; and thus he had gone to his trial; and without a hat. She spent her time in prison mending those clothes, and, for a memento, brought home a pin covered with blood.
What are the clothes that endure?
"The garments lasting evermore
Are works of mercy to the poor;
And neither tetter, time, nor moth
Shall fray that silk or fret this cloth."
The well-known verses called "The Soul's Errand," supposed, by some, to have been
