Do you hear the traitors who bid you speak The word that shall sever the sacred tie? And ye, who dwell by the golden Peak, Has the subtle whisper glided by? Has it crost the immemorial plains, To coasts where the gray Pacific roars And the Pilgrim blood in the people’s veins Is pure as the wealth of their mountain ores? Spirits of sons who, side by side, In a hundred battles fought and fell, Whom now no East and West divide, In the isles where the shades of heroes dwell; Say, has it reached your glorious rest, And ruffled the calm which crowns you there,— The shame that recreants have confest, The plot that floats in the troubled air? Sons of New England, here and there, Wherever men are still holding by The honor our fathers left so fair! Say, do you hear the cowards’ cry? Crouching among her grand old crags, Lightly our mother heeds their noise, With her fond eyes fixed on distant flags; But you—do you hear it, Yankee boys? Washington, January 19, 1863. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ASSASSINATED GOOD FRIDAY, 1865. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do!” He said, and so went shriven to his fate,— Unknowing went, that generous heart and true. Even while he spoke the slayer lay in wait, And when the morning opened Heaven’s gate There passed the whitest soul a nation knew. Henceforth all thoughts of pardon are too late; They, in whose cause that arm its weapon drew, Have murdered Mercy. Now alone shall stand Blind Justice, with the sword unsheathed she wore. Hark, from the eastern to the western strand, The swelling thunder of the people’s roar: What words they murmur,—Fetter not her hand! So let it smite, such deeds shall be no more! ISRAEL FREYER’S BID FOR GOLD. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1869. Zounds! how the price went flashing through Wall street, William, Broad street, New! All the specie in all the land Held in one Ring by a giant hand— For millions more it was ready to pay, And throttle the Street on hangman’s-day. Up from the Gold Pit’s nether hell, While the innocent fountain rose and fell, Loud and higher the bidding rose, And the bulls, triumphant, faced their foes. It seemed as if Satan himself were in it: Lifting it—one per cent a minute— Through the bellowing broker, there amid, Who made the terrible, final bid! High over all, and ever higher, Was heard the voice of Israel Freyer,— A doleful knell in the storm-swept mart,— “Five millions more! and for any part “I’ll give One Hundred and Sixty!”