“So,” cried the bard, “the whole wide earth Is a den of baffled souls. ’Mid all its pleasures, joys, and hopes, The dreary death-bell tolls.” “Hold,” cried his comrade--“See the whole And judge not by a part. The end shall crown the work, and heal The disappointed heart. See where the boatman waits to cross Death’s strange, mysterious stream The endless Life to Come outlasts This mortal, transient dream. “Unworthy of a wise man’s lips Are the murmurs of despair; The heavens have never lost one star And God Himself reigns there, A faithful God created man-- He ne’er forsakes a friend; Wait, comrade, on God’s goodness still-- Be patient to the end. “Through mists of doubt there shines a light Upon Death’s farther shore-- Where the Lethean draught of peace is quaffed And the struggle of earth is o’er. Our feet shall stand on the shining strand Of Life’s eternal river, Where the buds of Hope in fullness ope And Love endures forever.” BATTLE OF MILL SPRING. By the banks of the Cumberland echoes the roar Of the sentinel’s warning--the foe’s on the shore. Our war-drums are beaten, our bugles are blown, And our legions advance to their musical tone. By the banks of the Cumberland, slippery and red With the death-dew of battle, and strewn with the dead, Kentucky has routed her arrogant foe, And victory’s star gilds the night of our woe. By those banks, that once bloomed like an Eden of joy The fiend of Disunion stalked forth to destroy, Our rich teeming harvests he swept in his wrath, And the blaze of our dwellings illumined his path. Like an eagle-plumed arrow our Nemesis comes. Shout, soldiers! sound, bugles! and clamor, oh drums! Let the land ring aloud in the wildness of joy, And the bonfires blaze brightly--but not destroy. For the God of the Union has prospered the right, And the ranks of Disunion have melted in flight. Blow, bugles! roll, river! and tell to the sea That our swords shall not rest ’till Kentucky is free. THE GREEK SLAVE. [Power’s Greek Slave was on exhibition in Lexington, Ky., where I lived when these lines were published in the Lexington _Observer and Reporter_.]