maiden shame

On a couch of trampled grasses, just apart from all | And they robed the icy body, while no glow of the rest, Lay a fair young boy, with small hands meekly Changed the pallor of their foreheads to a flush

then those little maidens they were children of our focs

Midnight came with ebon garments and a diadem Laid the body of our drummer-boy to undis

of stars,

While right upward in the zenith hung the fiery

planet Mars.

Hark! a sound of stealthy footsteps and of voices

whispering low,

turbed repose.

ANONYMOUS.

NOT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.

"To fall on the battle-field fighting for my dear country, that

Was it nothing but the young leaves, or the would not be hard."-THE NEIGHBORS.

brook let's murmuring flow?

Clinging closely to each other, striving never to look round

As they passed with silent shudder the pale corses on the ground,

Came two little maidens,

light and hasty tread,

sisters,

O No, no, let me lie

Not on a field of battle when I die!

Let not the iron tread

Of the mad war-horse crush my helméd head;
Nor let the reeking knife,

That I have drawn against a brother's life,
Be in my hand when Death

with a Thunders along, and tramples me beneath
His heavy squadron's heels,

And a look upon their faces, half of sorrow, half Or gory felloes of his cannon's wheels.

of dread.

And they did not pause nor falter till, with throbbing hearts, they stood

their wardrobe's scanty store,

I know that beauty's eye

And two heavy iron shovels in their slender Is all the brighter where gay pennants fly,

hands they bore.

Then they quickly knelt beside him, crushing back the pitying tears,

For they had no time for weeping, nor for any girlish fears.

And brazen helmets dance,
And sunshine flashes on the lifted lance;
I know that bards have sung,

And people shouted till the welkin rung,

In honor of the brave

Who on the battle-field have found a grave;

I know that o'er their bones
Have grateful hands piled monumental stones.
Some of those piles I've seen :
The one at Lexington upon the green

Where the first blood was shed,

And to my country's independence led ;
And others, on our shore,
The "Battle Monument" at Baltimore,
And that on Bunker's Hill.

Ay, and abroad, a few more famous still;
Thy "tomb," Themistocles,

That looks out yet upon the Grecian seas,
And which the waters kiss

That issue from the gulf of Salamis.

And thine, too, have I seen,

Thy mound of earth, Patroclus, robed in green,
That, like a natural knoll,

Sheep climb and nibble over as they stroll,
Watched by some turbaned boy,

Upon the margin of the plain of Troy.

Such honors grace the bed,

I know, whereon the warrior lays his head,
And hears, as life ebbs out,

Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his
pride:

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,

The conquered flying, and the conqueror's shout; And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;

But as his eye grows dim,

What is a column or a mound to him?

What, to the parting soul,

The mellow note of bugles? What the roll
Of drums? No, let me die

Where the blue heaven bends o'er me lovingly,
And the soft summer air,

As it goes by me, stirs my thin white hair,
And from my forehead dries

The death-damp as it gathers, and the skies
Seem waiting to receive

My soul to their clear depths! Or let me leave
The world when round my bed

Wife, children, weeping friends are gathered,
And the calm voice of prayer
And holy hymning shall my soul prepare
To go and be at rest

With kindred spirits, spirits who have blessed
The human brotherhood

By labors, cares, and counsels for their good.

JOHN PIERPONT.

AH! whence yon glare,

That fires the arch of heaven?-that dark red smoke
Blotting the silver moon? The stars are quenched
In darkness, and pure and spangling snow
Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers
round!

Hark to that roar, whose swift and deafening peals
In countless echoes through the mountains ring,
Startling pale midnight on her starry throne!
Now swells the intermingling din; the jar
Frequent and frightful of the bursting bomb;
The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout,
The ceaseless clangor, and the rush of men
Inebriate with rage; - loud, and more loud
The discord grows; till pale death shuts the scene,
And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws
His cold and bloody shroud. — Of all the men

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there,

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on

the sea,

In proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts
That beat with anxious life at sunset there,
How few survive, how few are beating now!
All is deep silence, like the fearful calm
That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause;

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Save when the frantic wail of widowed love

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;

Comes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moan
With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay
Wrapt round its struggling powers.

The gray morn | As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep,
For their mother, may Heaven defend her!

His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim, Scarce grazing the picture, so fair to behold,

“Ha! rifleman, fling me the locket !—'t is she, | But that parting was years, long years ago,

He wandered away to a foreign land;
And our dear old mother will never know
That he died to-night by his brother's hand.

We must bury him there, by the light of the The soldiers who buried the dead away

Disturbed not the clasp of that last embrace, But laid them to sleep till the judgment-day, Heart folded to heart, and face to face.