308

THE FALLEN SOLDIER.

Who knows this brave lad, for he scarce can be

twenty,

That just for his country was eager to die? Just for his country, without hope of glory, He dropped from the saddle in darkness to lie.

Bear him in pity, and bear him in anguish ;

You think them soft lips, but they changed

without moan;

For I, who rode next him, sprang forward and clasped him,

And held both his hands, to the last, in my own.

We knew not the great heart that bore him right onward,

Beating its twenty good years out so well; But, comrades, I felt the thin hands of his mother, Bearing him up through my own when he fell.

Sad 't is to think of the lonely brown homestead
Set in the bleak, barren, North hills afar ;
There they have loved him so, there they will
mourn him so,

Never returning to them from the war.

THE DRUMMER-BOY OF MARBLEHEAD. 309

THE DRUMMER-BOY OF MARBLEHEAD.

O arms to strike and forward feet,

Ho

Ere dries the blood by dastards shed!
While scowls and gleaming eyes that meet
Bewail our murdered dead.

From Berkshire's mountains to the Bay,
Her rally Massachusetts rings,
Curse on the faltering step to day
That shame upon her brings!

This April day which frowning dies,
Betrothed in its natal hour

To hills that prop New England's skies,
Brought vengeance for its dower :
Then arms to strike and forward feet,
Ere dries our blood by dastards shed!

For men, upon each village street
Are mustering, as at Marblehead.

Pauses a homeward schoolboy there;
Absorbed in thought he stands;
While patriots pass with brows of care,
And muskets in their hands.
Then starting, to a comrade spoke
That gallant boy of Marblehead :
"The tether of my books is broke,
Brace me the drum instead!"

310 THE DRUMMER-BOY OF MARBLEHEAD.

Now serried ranks are slanting grim

Their bayonets in the summer beams;
And, keeping step to Freedom's hymn,
Southward the column streams.
"Your blessing, mother! cease to cry,
There really is no cause for dread;
Our grand old tunes will make them fly!"
Said the bold boy of Marblehead.

New England's sons were smiting sore,
With whistling ball and sabre stroke,
The rebel rout which fast before
Fled for the swamps of Roanoke.
And in that hour of steel and flame,
On and exultant, still there led,
While falling foemen felt his aim,
The drummer-boy of Marblehead.

"Once more we'll have our good old air,
'Tis fitting on this glorious field,
'T will quell the traitors in their lair,
And teach them how to yield!"

It swelled, to stir our hearts like flame;
Then back a hostile bullet sped,
And Death delivered up to Fame
The drummer-boy of Marblehead.

THE SOLDIER'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. 311

THE SOLDIER'S LITTLE DAUGHTER.

BY MRS. M. A. DENISON.

THE night was stormy, dark, and cold;
My way led through the city,

Where wretched buildings, gray and old,
Seemed stained with tears of pity.

Few were the cheerful sounds I heard,
No laughter wild and free ;

But once the sweet voice of a bird
Piped up and plained to me.

A little bird unblessed with wings,
Her dark, sad eyes all tearful;
Ah, God! to see such tender things
Out in the storm is fearful.

And thus she plained:

I never begged before;

"Oh! stranger hear;

But mother has been dead a year,

And father's gone to war.

"And yesterday the work gave out

By which I earned a penny; Last night I had a crust of bread;

To-night I have n't any.

312 THE SOLDIER'S LITTLE DAUGHTER.

And I am very hungry, sir."

I brought her bread

-

to spare

Then up into the old gray house
Climbed by the broken stair.

A tremulous light threw shadows long
Over the cheerless room;

O! childhood-shrined in deathless song,
Are such your spots of bloom?

I asked her name, her tender age;
Intensest pity won her;

A little maid of seven years,
And all this woe upon her!

66

'My name is Nelly Grover, sir; My father loved me dearly; And is it true, as people say,

That war is ended, — nearly?"

'T was strange, but as she spoke, I chanced To look my paper over :

And there I read

"Shot through the heart

A private, William Grover."

O, awful hour! can I forget

Her tears, her broken sobbing;