“This is the arsenal.  From floor to ceiling,
      Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
    But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
      Startles the villages with strange alarms.”

Unhappily, the last two lines of this beautiful stanza no longer appropriately describe the quiet and peaceful condition of these then harmless arms,—­one hundred and fifty thousand of them having been literally stolen from this arsenal by Floyd during the last year of his secretaryship at Washington, and sent South in anticipation and furtherance of the Rebellion, and the remainder issued to the loyal troops raised for the defence of the Union.  Thus these grim messengers of death, of whom the poet so sweetly sings, have forced

    “The cries of agony, the endless groan,”

from Northern and Southern warriors alike, and rung the

    “loud lament and dismal Miserere”

within the homes of every part of our once happy and peaceful land.

The arsenal has another charm for visitors besides the beauty of the burnished arms within, in the magnificent panorama of the surrounding country seen from the summit of the tower.  This tower, which occupies the middle of the front of the building, is about ninety feet high by thirty square, affording space upon the top for a large party of visitors.  Nothing can be imagined more enchanting than the view presented from this point during the spring and summer months.  At your feet are the beautiful armory-grounds, mingling with the treeskirted streets of the city; while beyond, the broad and luxuriant valley of the Connecticut is spread out to view, with its numerous villages, fields, groves, bridges, and railways, and the whole landscape framed by blue mountain-ranges, among which Mounts Tom and Holyoke rise in towering majesty.

The arsenal is used for the storage of the muskets during the interval that elapses from the finishing of them to the time when they are sent away to the various permanent arsenals established by Government in different parts of the country, or issued to the troops.  This edifice was constructed about a dozen years ago, and has, until recently, been designated as the new arsenal, there being two or three other buildings which were formerly used for the storage of finished muskets, called the old arsenals, but which, since the Rebellion, have been relieved of their contents and supplied with machinery for the manufacture of arms.  A portion of the new arsenal is now used for finishing barrels and assembling muskets, and other parts for storing ordnance-supplies.

The storehouse, offices, and workshops are extensive buildings,—­the former being eight hundred feet long, and one of the latter six hundred feet long and thirty-two feet wide.