From that period it did not require a heavy discounting of the future to write Hiram Meeker a MILLIONAIRE. END OF PART II. DEAD! Dead--dead--no matter, the skies are blue, In their fathomless depths above, And the glad Earth's robes are as bright in hue, And worn with as regal a grace, and true, As they were on the day they were woven new By the hand of Infinite Love. Hush! hush!--there is music out in the street, A popular martial strain; While the constant patter of countless feet Keeps time to the strokes of the drum's quick beat, And the echoing voices that mix and meet Swell out in a glad refrain. Lost--lost! Oh, why, when the earth is bright, And soft is the zephyr's breath, Oh! why, when the world is so full of light, Should the wild heart, robed in a cloak of night, Send up from frozen lips and white A desolate cry of death? Dead--dead! How wearily drag the days; And wearily life runs on! The skies look cold, through a misty haze, That curdles the gold of the bright sun's rays, And the dead leaves cover the banks and braes, A shroud of the summer gone. Last year--nay! nay! I do not complain; There are graves in the heart of all; So I do not murmur; 'twere weak and vain; I accept in silence my share of pain, And the clouds, with their fringes of crimson stain, That over my young life fall. There were beautiful days last year, I mind, When the maple trees turned red, They flew away like the sportive wind, But I gathered the joys they left behind, As I gather the leaves, but to-day I find That the joys, like the leaves, _are dead_. One year! It is past, and I stand _alone_, Where I stood with another then; 'Tis well--I had scorned to have held _my own_ From the bloody strife, though my soul had known That _his_ life would ebb ere the day was gone, Amid thousands of nameless men. _Nameless_, yet never a one less dear Than the _dearest_ of all the dead; I weep--but, Father, my bitter tear Falleth not down o'er a _single_ bier-- I mourn not the joys of the lost last year, But the rivers of bright blood shed. RECONSTRUCTION.