I am sorry for them, though it is by no means a sorrow without hope. Since the matter has gone so far, there seems to be no way but to go on winning victories, and establishing peace and a truer union in another generation, at the expense, probably, of greater trouble, in the present one, than any other people ever voluntarily suffered. We woo the South "as the Lion wooes his bride"; it is a rough courtship, but perhaps love and a quiet household may come of it at last. Or, if we stop short of that blessed consummation, heaven was heaven still, as Milton sings, after Lucifer and a third part of the angels had seceded from its golden palaces,--and perhaps all the more heavenly, because so many gloomy brows, and soured, vindictive hearts, had gone to plot ineffectual schemes of mischief elsewhere. [Footnote: We regret the innuendo in the concluding sentence. The war can never be allowed to terminate, except in the complete triumph of Northern principles. We hold the event in our own hands, and may choose whether to terminate it by the methods already so successfully used, or by other means equally within our control, and calculated to be still more speedily efficacious. In truth, the work is already done. We should be sorry to cast a doubt on the Peaceable Man's loyalty, but he will allow us to say that we consider him premature in his kindly feelings towards traitors and sympathizers with treason. As the author himself says of John Brown, (and, so applied, we thought it an atrociously cold-blooded _dictum_,) "any common-sensible man would feel an intellectual satisfaction in seeing them hanged, were it only for their preposterous miscalculation of possibilities." There are some degrees of absurdity that put Reason herself into a rage, and affect us like an intolerable crime,--which this Rebellion is, into the bargain.] THE MINUTE-GUNS. I stood within the little cove, Full of the morning's life and hope, While heavily the eager waves Charged thundering up the rocky slope. The splendid breakers! how they rushed, All emerald green and flashing white, Tumultuous in the morning sun, With cheer, and sparkle, and delight! And freshly blew the fragrant wind, The wild sea-wind, across their tops, And caught the spray and flung it far, In sweeping showers of glittering drops. Within the cove all flashed and foamed, With many a fleeting rainbow hue; Without, gleamed, bright against the sky, A tender, wavering line of blue, Where tossed the distant waves, and far Shone silver-white a quiet sail, And overhead the soaring gulls With graceful pinions stemmed the gale. And all my pulses thrilled with joy, Watching the wind's and water's strife,-- With sudden rapture,--and I cried, "Oh, sweet is Life! Thank God for Life!" Sailed any cloud across the sky, Marring this glory of the sun's? Over the sea, from distant forts, There came the boom of minute-guns!