Creeping pines and mosses grow O'er the fragile form below! Violets, bright-eyed pansies wave o'er the lowly, harmless grave; Let the butterfly and bee all the summer flutter free, O'er the flowers grown from a heart which no wrongs could ever part, Nor torture e'er remove from the creatures of its love; With the wild and feverish brain, and thought's bright but blighted train, With strong heart, but anguished soul, and pain's weird and heavy dole-- Let the weary, tired form, whose lost life was only storm, In the shroud's pure snow Find release from woe, Nor hope, nor joy, nor love it e'er again would know! NEGRO TROOPS. There was a time not long since when the serious consideration of a question like this would have met with little favor. We remember seeing, in this city of New York, one genial October day, not very many years ago, a small company of negro soldiers. They were marching in Canal street, not in Broadway, and seemed to fear molestation even there. The writer was a schoolboy then, cadet in a military school (one of the first established of those excellent institutions), and had, of course, a particular interest in all military matters. So he stopped to look upon these black soldiers--marching with all the more pride (as it seemed to him) because they marched under the floating folds of the stars and stripes. His boy's heart was stirred by the spectacle, and full of a big emotion; but the fashion of the times overpowered the generous impulse, and he treated the negro soldiers with contempt. This was in the palmy days of the old _regime_. The stifling of that generous impulse was one of the glories of the old _regime_. Not a decade of years went by, and the writer stood again in the streets of New York city, and saw another sight of negro soldiers. It was, indeed, and in all respects, another sight. This time the black men marched in Broadway; this time they feared no molestation. It was a balmy day in spring, and God's sunshine glistened gladly from the bright bayonets of United States black soldiers. What a spectacle it was! There marched the retributive justice of the nation--'carrying the flag and keeping step to the music of the Union.' That march was a march of triumph, and its sublime watchword was: 'LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE!'