From the hearths of their cabins,
    The fields of their corn,
  Unwarned and unweaponed,
    The victims were torn,—­
  By the whirlwind of murder
    Swooped up and swept on
  To the low, reedy fen-lands,
    The Marsh of the Swan.

  With a vain plea for mercy
    No stout knee was crooked;
  In the mouths of the rifles
    Right manly they looked. 
  How paled the May sunshine,
    Green Marais du Cygne,
  When the death-smoke blew over
    Thy lonely ravine!

  In the homes of their rearing,
    Yet warm with their lives,
  Ye wait the dead only,
    Poor children and wives! 
  Put out the red forge-fire,
    The smith shall not come;
  Unyoke the brown oxen,
    The ploughman lies dumb.

  Wind slow from the Swan’s Marsh,
    O dreary death-train,
  With pressed lips as bloodless
    As lips of the slain! 
  Kiss down the young eyelids,
    Smooth down the gray hairs;
  Let tears quench the curses
    That burn through your prayers.

  Strong man of the prairies,
    Mourn bitter and wild! 
  Wail, desolate woman! 
    Weep, fatherless child! 
  But the grain of God springs up
    From ashes beneath,
  And the crown of His harvest
    Is life out of death.

  Not in vain on the dial
    The shade moves along
  To point the great contrasts
    Of right and of wrong: 
  Free homes and free altars
    And fields of ripe food;
  The reeds of the Swan’s Marsh,
    Whose bloom is of blood.

  On the lintels of Kansas
    That blood shall not dry;
  Henceforth the Bad Angel
    Shall harmless go by: 
  Henceforth to the sunset,
    Unchecked on her way,
  Shall Liberty follow
    The march of the day.

YOUTH.

The ancient statue of Minerva, in the Villa Albani, was characterized as the Goddess of Wisdom by an aged countenance.  Phidias reformed this idea, and gave to her beauty and youth.  Previous artists had imitated Nature too carelessly,—­not deeply perceiving that wisdom and virtue, striving in man to resist senescence and decay, must in a goddess accomplish their purpose, and preserve her in perpetual bloom.  Yet even decay and disease are often ineffectual; the young soul gleams through these impediments, and would be poorly expressed in figures of age.  Accepting, therefore, this ideal representation, age and wisdom can never be companions; youth is wise, and age is imbecile.