Till his blood was drained by the desert; And, ruffled with triumph and power, He licked me and lay beside me

To breath him a vast half-hour; Then down to the fountain we loitered, Where the antelopes came to drink,— Like a bolt we sprang upon them,

Ere they had time to shrink.

We drank their blood and crushed them,
And tore them limb from limb,
And the hungriest lion doubted
Ere he disputed with him.

That was a life to live for!

Not this weak human life, With its frivolous, bloodless passions,

Its poor and petty strife!
Come to my arms, my hero,

The shadows of twilight grow
And the tiger's ancient fierceness
In my veins begins to flow.
Come not cringing to sue me!
Take me with triumph and power,

As a warrior storms a fortress!
I will not shrink or cower.
Come as you came in the desert,

Ere we were women and men,
When the tiger passions were in us,
And love as you loved me then!

A BATTLE PICTURE.

Did you ever see a battery take position? It hasn't the thrill of a cavalry charge, nor the grimness of a line of bayonets moving slowly and determinedly on, but there is a peculiar excitement about it that makes old veterans rise in the saddle and cheer. We have been fighting at the edge of the woods. Every cartridge box has been emptied once and more, and a fourth of the brigade has melted away in dead, wounded and missing. Not a cheer is heard in the whole brigade. We know that we are being driven foot by foot, and that when we break once more the line will go to pieces, and the enemy will pour through the gap. Here comes help. Down the crowded highway gallops a battery, withdrawn from another position to save ours. The field fence is scattered while you could count thirty, and the guns rush for the hill behind us. Six horses to a piece-three riders to each gun. Over dry ditches where a farmer could not drive a wagon, through clumps of bushes, over logs a foot thick, every horse on a gallop, every rider lashing his team and yelling. The sight behind makes us forget the foe in front. The guns jump two feet high as the heavy wheels strike rock or

Bul

log, but not a horse slackens his pace, not a cannoneer loses his seat. Six guns, six caissons, sixty horses, eighty men race for the brow of the hill, as if he who reached it first was to be knighted. A moment ago the battery was a confused mob. We look again and the six guns are in position, the detached horses hurrying away, the ammunition chests open, and along our line runs the command, "Give them one more volley, and fall back to support the guns!" We have scarcely obeyed, when, boom! boom! boom! opens the battery, and jets of fire jump down and scorch the green trees under which we fought and despaired. The shattered old brigade has a chance to breathe for the first time in three hours as we form a line of battle behind the guns and lie down. What grim, cool fellows those cannoneers are! Every man is a perfect machine. lets plash dust into their faces, but they do not wince. Bullets sing over and around them, but they do not dodge. There goes one to the earth, shot through the head as he sponged his gun. The machinery loses just one beat-misses one cog in the wheel, and then works away again as before. Every gun is using short-fuse shell. The ground shakes and trembles-the roar shuts out all sound from a battle line three miles long, and the shells go shrieking into the swamp to cut trees short off-to mow great gaps in the bushes-to hunt out and shatter and mangle men until their corpses cannot be recognised as human. You would think a tornado was howling through the forest, followed by billows of fire, and yet men live through it-ay! press forward to capture the battery! We can hear their shouts as they form for the rush. Now the shells are changed for grape and cannister, and the guns are served out so fast that all reports blend into one mighty roar. The shriek of a shell is one of the wickedest sounds in war. but nothing makes the flesh crawl like the demoniac singing, purring, whistling grape shot, and the serpent-like hiss of cannister. Men's legs and arms are not shot through, but torn off. Heads are torn from bodies, and bodies cut in two. A round shot or shell takes two men out of the ranks as it crashes through. Grape and cannister mow a swathe and pile the dead on top of each other. Through the smoke we see a swarm of men. It is not a battle line, but a mob of men desperate enough to bathe their bayonets in the flame of the guns. The guns leap from the ground almost, as they are depressed on the foe, and shrieks, and screams, and shouts blend into one awful and steady cry. Twenty men out of the battery are down,