a diadem. And joy is upon thee for evermore. Over all this land,
over all the little cloud of years that now from thine infinite
horizon moves back as a speck, thou art lifted up as high as the
star is above the clouds that bide us, but never reach it. In the
goodly company of Mount Zion thou shalt find that rest which thou
hast sorrowing sought in vain; and thy name, an everlasting name in
heaven, shall flourish in fragrance and beauty as long as men shall
last upon the earth, or hearts remain, to revere truth, fidelity,
and goodness.

Never did two such orbs of experience meet in one hemisphere, as the
joy and the sorrow of the same week in this land. The joy was as
sudden as if no man had expected it, and as entrancing as if it had
fallen a sphere from heaven. It rose up over sobriety, and swept
business from its moorings, and ran down through the land in
irresistible course. Men embraced each other in brotherhood that
were strangers in the flesh. They sang, or prayed, or, deeper yet,
many could only think thanksgiving and weep gladness. That peace was
sure; that government was firmer than ever; that the land was
cleansed of plague; that the ages were opening to our footsteps, and
we were to begin a march of blessings; that blood was staunched, and
scowling enmities were sinking like storms beneath the horizon; that
the dear fatherland, nothing lost, much gained, was to rise up in
unexampled honor among the nations of the earth--these thoughts,
and that undistinguishable throng of fancies, and hopes, and
desires, and yearnings, that filled the soul with tremblings like
the heated air of midsummer days--all these kindled up such a
surge of joy as no words may describe.

In one hour joy lay without a pulse, without a gleam or breath. A
sorrow came that swept through the land as huge storms sweep through
the forest and field, rolling thunder along the sky, disheveling the
flowers, daunting every singer in thicket or forest, and pouring
blackness and darkness across the land and up the mountains. Did
ever so many hearts, in so brief a time, touch two such boundless
feelings? It was the uttermost of joy; it was the uttermost of
sorrow--noon and midnight, without a space between.

The blow brought not a sharp pang. It was so terrible that at first
it stunned sensibility. Citizens were like men awakened
at midnight by an earthquake and bewildered to find everything that
they were accustomed to trust waverin