THE OLD SERGEANT [JANUARY 1, 1863.] The Carrier cannot sing to-day the ballads Rhyming the glad rounds of the happy New Years For the same awful and portentous Shadow And smote the land last year with desolation, And the Carrier hears Beethoven's mighty death-march And he hears and feels it breathing in his bosom, And to-day, a scarred and weather-beaten veteran, To tell the story of the Old Year's struggles And the song is his, but not so with the story ; Was told in prose to Assistant-Surgeon Austin, By Robert Burton, who was brought up on the Adams, And who told the story to the Assistant-Surgeon, But the singer feels it will better suit the ballad, To tell the story as if what it speaks of "Come a little nearer, Doctor,-thank you; let me take the cup : "Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain't much use to try" "Never say that," said the Surgeon, as he smothered down a sigh; "It will never do, old comrade, for a soldier to say die!" What you say will make no difference, Doctor, when you come to die. 66 Doctor, what has been the matter ?” they say; "You were very faint, "Doctor, have I been You must try to get to sleep now. stay! "Doctor-Doctor, please to There is something I must tell you, and you won't have lng to stay! "I have got my marching orders, and I'm ready now to go; Doctor, did you say I fainted?- but it couldn't ha' been so, For as sure as I 'm a Sergeant, and was wounded at Shiloh, "This is all that I remember: The last time the Lighter came, And the lights had all been lowered, and the noises much the same, He had not been gone five minutes before something called my name: 'ORDERLY SERGEANT called my name. ROBERT BURTON!'-just that way it "And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so slow, Knew it couldn't be the Lighter, he could not have spoken so, And I tried to answer, 'Here, sir!' but I couldn't make it go; For I couldn't move a muscle, and I couldn't make it go. "Then I thought: It's all a nightmare, all a humbug and a bore; Just another foolish grape-vine - and it won't come any more; But it came, sir, notwithstanding, just the same way as before: 'ORDERLY SERGEANT - ROBERT BURTON !'- even louder than before. "That is all that I remember, till a sudden burst of light, "And the same old palpitation came again in all its power, 'ORDERLY SERGEANT - ROBERT BURTON - IT IS THE ELEVENTH HOUR!' "Dr. Austin !—what day is this?" "It is Wednesday night, you know." "Yes,- to-morrow will be New Year's and a right good time below! "There was where the gunboats opened on the dark rebellious host; And where Webster semicircled his last guns upon the coast; There were still the two log-houses, just the same, or else their ghost! And the same old transport came and took me over —or its ghost! "And the old field lay before me, all deserted, far and wide; There was where they fell on Prentiss - there McClernand met the tide ; There was where stern Sherman rallied, and where Hurlbut's heroes died,― Lower down, where Wallace charged them, and kept charging till he died. "There was where Lew Wallace showed them he was of the canny kin, There was where old Nelson thundered, and where Rousseau waded in ; There McCook sent 'em to breakfast, and we all began to win And behold, a mighty Tower, as if builded to the dead, "Round and mighty based it towered up into the infinite "And, behold, as I approached it with a rapt and dazzled stare, Thinking that I saw old comrades just ascending the great Stair,Suddenly the solemn challenge broke of 'Halt! and who goes there ?' 'I'm a friend,' I said, 'if you are.' 'Then advance, sir, to the Stair!' "I advanced! That sentry, Doctor, was Elijah Ballantyne ! First of all to fall on Monday, after we had formed the line! 'Welcome, my old Sergeant, welcome! Welcome by that countersign!' And he pointed to the scar there, under this old cloak of mine. "As he grasped my hand, I shuddered, thinking only of, the grave; But he smiled and pointed upward with a bright and bloodless glaive : 'That's the way, sir, to Headquarters.' 'What Headquarters ?' 'Of the Brave.' 'But the great Tower?' 'That was builded of the great deeds of the Brave!' "Then a sudden shame came o'er me at his uniform of light; At my own so old and battered, and at his so new and bright; 'Ah!' said he, 'you have forgotten the new uniform to-night! Hurry back, for you must be here at just twelve o'clock to-night!' "And the next thing I remember, you were sitting there, and I.... Doctor - did you hear a footstep? Hark! - God bless you all! Good-bye! Doctor, please to give my musket and my knapsack, when I die, To my son my son that 's coming,- he won't get here till I die! "Tell him his old father blessed him - as he never did before,— And to carry that old musket" . . . . Hark! a knock is at the door! "Till the Union" See! it opens! . . . . "Father! Fath er! speak once more! “Bless you !”— gasped the old gray Sergeant. And he lay and said no more! BYRON FORCEYTHE WILLSON. THE PLACE WHERE MAN SHOULD DIE How little recks it where men lie, Or in its nakedness return Back to its mother's breast! Death is a common friend or foe, But when the spirit, free and warm, What matter where the lifeless form The soldier falls 'mid corses piled Where reinless war-steeds gallop wild But though his corse be grim to see, What recks it, when the spirit free The coward's dying eyes may close And softest hands his limbs compose, 'T were sweet, indeed, to close our eyes, But whether on the scaffold high, The fittest place where man can die Is where he dies for man! MICHAEL JOSEPH BARRY. THE BELLS OF SHANDON WITH deep affection And recollection I often think of Those Shandon bells, Whose sounds so wild would, Fling round my cradle Their magic spells. |