"'Tis beauteous night, the stars look brightly down Upon the earth, decked in her robe of snow, No light gleams at the window save my own, Which gives its cheer to midnight and to me And now with noiseless step sweet Memory comes, And leads me gently through her twilight realms What poet's tuneful lyre has ever sung, Or delicatest pencil e'er portrayed The enchanted shadowy land where Memory dwells? It has its valleys, cheerless lone and drear, Dark shaded by the mournful cypress tree, And yet its sunlit mountain tops are bathed In heaven's own blue. Upon its craggy cliffs, Robed in the dreamy light of distant years, Are clustered joys serene of other days, Upon its gently sloping hillsides bend The weeping willows o'er the sacred dust Of dear departed ones, and yet in that land, Whene'er our footsteps fall upon the shore, They that were sleeping rise from out the dust Of death's long silent years, and round us stand, As erst they did before the prison tomb Received their clay within its voiceless halls The heavens that bend above that land are hung With clouds of various hues some dark and chill Surcharged with sorrow, cast then sombre shade Upon the sunny, joyous land below, Others are floating through the dreamy air, White as the falling snow their margins tinged With gold and crimson hues, then shadows fall Upon the flowery meads and sunny slopes, Soft as the shadows of angel's wing When the rough battle of the day is done. And evening's peace falls gently on the heart, I bound away across the noisy years, Unto the utmost verge of Memory's land, Where earth and sky in dreamy distance meet, And Memory dim with dark oblivion joins; Where woke the first-remembered sounds that fell Upon the ear in childhood's early morn; And wandering thence, along the rolling years, I see the shadow of my former self Gliding from childhood up to man's estate. The path of youth winds down through many a vale And on the brink of many a dread abyss, From out whose darkness comes no ray of light, Save that a phantom dances o'er the gulf, And beckons toward the verge. Again the path Leads o'er a summit where the sunbeams fall; And thus in light and shade, sunshine and gloom, Sorrow and joy, this life-path leads along." He was also a prominent member of the Philologian Society, of which he was afterwards elected president. While James was at Williamstown, the anti-slavery contest was at a white heat. Charles Sumner had aroused the whole nation by his stirring, eloquent speeches in Congress; and when the tidings came of the attack made upon him by Preston Brooks of South Carolina, indignation meetings were held everywhere throughout the North. At the gathering in Williamstown, Garfield made a most powerful speech, denouncing slavery in the strongest terms.