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THE SOLDIER'S MOTHER.

43

With his beard shutting out the sweet smiles of his mouth;

And the tremulous beauty, the womanly grace, Will be bronzed from the delicate lines of his face, Where, of late, only childhood's soft beauty I saw,For he seemed like a child till he went to the War!

He was always so gentle, and ready to yield;
And so frank, there was nothing kept back or con-
cealed;

He was always so sparkling with laughter and joy,
I had thought he never could cease being a boy;
But when sounded the cannon for battle, and when
Rose the rallying cry of our Nation for men,
From the dream-loving mood of his boyhood he
passed;

From his path the light fetters of pleasure he cast;
And rose, ready to stand in the perilous van,
Not the tremulous boy, but the resolute man;
And I gazed on him sadly, with trembling and

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He was only a child till he went to the War!

There are homes that are humbler and sadder than

ours;

There are ways that are barer of beauty and flowers;

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THE DEAD DRUMMER-BOY.

There are those that must suffer for fire and bread,
Living only to sorrow and wish they were dead;
I must try and be patient- I must not repine
But what heart is more lonely, more anxious than
mine !

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Or what hearth can be darker than mine seems

to be,

Now the glow of the firelight is all I can see,
Where my darling, in beauty, so lately I saw,
He was only a child, till he went to the War!

'M"

THE DEAD DRUMMER-BOY.

IDST tangled roots that lined the wild ravine
Where the fierce fight raged hottest through

the day,

And where the dead in scattered heaps were seen, Amid the darkling forest's shade and sheen,

Speechless in death he lay.

The setting sun,

which glanced athwart the place

In slanting lines, like amber-tinted rain,

Fell sidewise on the drummer's upturned face,
Where death had left his gory finger's trace
In one bright crimson stain.

THE DEAD DRUMMER-BOY.

The silken fringes of his once bright eye
Lay like a shadow on his cheek so fair;
His lips were parted by a long-drawn sigh,
That with his soul had mounted to the sky
On some wild martial air.

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No more his hand the fierce tattoo shall beat,
The shrill reveille, or the long roll's call,
Or sound the charge, when in the smoke and heat
Of fiery onset, foe with foe shall meet,

And gallant men shall fall.

Yet may be in some happy home, that one,
A mother, reading from the list of dead,
Shall chance to view the name of her dear son,
And move her lips to say, "God's will be done!"
And bow in grief her head.

But more than this what tongue shall tell his story?
Perhaps his boyish longings were for fame ;
He lived, he died; and so, memento mori,·
Enough if on the page of War and Glory
Some hand has writ his name.

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A NATIONAL HYMN.

A NATIONAL HYMN.

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

REAT God! to whom our nation's woes,
Our dire distress, our angry foes,
In all their awful gloom are known,
We bow to Thee and Thee alone.

We pray Thee mitigate this strife,
Attended by such waste of life,

Such wounds and anguish, groans and tears,
That fill our inmost hearts with fears.

Oh, darkly now the tempest rolls,
Wide o'er our desolated souls;
Yet, beaten downward to the dust,
In Thy forgiveness still we trust.

We trust to Thy protecting power
In this, our country's saddest hour,
And pray that Thou wilt spread Thy shield
Above us in the camp and field.

O, God of battles! let Thy might
Protect our armies in the fight —
"Till they shall win the victory,
And set the hapless bondmen free.

AVENGED!

"Till, guided by Thy glorious hand,
Those armies reunite the land,

And North and South alike shall raise
To God their peaceful hymns of praise.

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AVENGED !

BY ORPHEUS C. KERR.*

OD'S scales of Justice hang between

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The deed Unjust and the end Unseen, And the sparrow's fall in the one is weighed By the Lord's own hand in the other laid.

In the prairie path to our Sunset gate,
In the flow'ring heart of a new-born State,
Are the hopes of an old man's waning years,
'Neath headstones worn with an old man's tears.

When the bright sun sinks in the rose-lipped West,
His last red ray is the headstone's crest:
And the mounds he laves in a crimson flood
Are a Soldier's wealth baptized in blood!

Do ye ask who reared those headstones there, And crowned with thorns a sire's gray hair? *R. H. Newell.

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