Yet the lark's shrill fife may come

At the daybreak from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,

Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near;
Guards nor warders challenge here;
Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans, or squadrons stamping.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

THE SOLDIER'S DIRGE

Dead in the battle,-dead on the field:
More than his life can a soldier yield?
Dead for his country, muffle the drums:
Slowly the sad procession comes.

The heart may ache, but the heart must swell
With pride for the soldier who fought so well.
His blood has burnished his sabre bright:
To his memory, honor; to him, good-night.
ELIZABETH HARMAN.

Sleep,

TAPS

Now that the charge is won,

Sleep in the narrow clod;

Now it is set of sun,

Sleep till the trump of God.
Sleep.

But jealous hearts that live and ache
Remember, and while drums are mute,
Beneath your banners' bright outbreak,
Salute:

And say for us to lessening ranks

That keep the memory and the pride,
On whose thinned hair our tears and thanks
Abide,

Who from their saved Republic pass,
Glad with the Prince of Peace to dwell:

Hail, dearest few! and soon, alas,

Farewell.

LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY.

THE NEW MEMORIAL DAY

Oh, the roses we plucked for the blue
And the lilies we twined for the gray,
We have bound in a wreath,

And in silence beneath

Slumber our heroes to-day.

Over the new-turned sod

The sons of our fathers stand,

And the fierce old fight
Slips out of sight

In the clasp of a brother's hand.

For the old blood left a stain

That the new has washed away,

And the song of those

That have faced as foes

Are marching together to-day.

Oh, the blood that our fathers gave!

Oh, the tide of our mothers' tears!

And the flow of red,

And the tears they shed,

Embittered a sea of

years.

But the roses we plucked for the blue,

And the lilies we twined for the

We have bound in a wreath,

And in glory beneath

Slumber our heroes to-day.

gray,

ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

A MONUMENT FOR THE SOLDIERS*

A monument for the Soldiers!

And what will ye build it of?

Can ye build it of marble, or brass, or bronze,
Outlasting the Soldiers' love?

Can ye glorify it with legends

As grand as their blood hath writ

From the inmost shrine of this land of thine
To the outermost verge of it?

And the answer came: We would build it
Out of our hopes made sure,

And out of our purest prayers and tears,
And out of our faith secure:

We would build it out of the great white truths
Their death hath sanctified,

And the sculptured forms of the men in arms,
And their faces ere they died.

And what heroic figures

Can the sculptor carve in stone?
Can the marble breast be made to bleed,
And the marble lips to moan?

Can the marble brow be fevered?

And the marble eyes be graved

To look their last, as the flag floats past,
On the country they have saved?

And the ans. er came: The figures
Shall all be fair and brave,

And, as befitting, as pure and white
As the stars above their grave!

*Used by special permission of the publishers, the Bobbs-Merrill Company, from "Green Fields and Running Brooks," copyright, 1892.

The marble lips, and breast and brow
Whereon the laurel lies,

Bequeath us right to guard the flight
Of the old flag in the skies!

A monument for the Soldiers!
Built of a people's love,

And blazoned and decked and panoplied
With the hearts ye build it of!
And see that ye build it stately,
In pillar and niche and gate,

And high in pose as the souls of those
It would commemorate!

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.

DECORATION DAY AT CHARLESTON

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,-
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause!
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause,

In seeds of laurel in the earth

The blossom of your fame is blown, And somewhere, waiting for its birth, The shaft is in the stone!

Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years

Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! your sisters bring their tears,
And these memorial blooms.