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; He was always so sparkling with laughter and joy, From his path the light fetters of pleasure he cast; 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; 44 THE DEAD DRUMMER-BOY. There are those that must suffer for fire and bread, Or what hearth can be darker than mine seems to be, Now the glow of the firelight is all I can see, 'M" THE DEAD DRUMMER-BOY. IDST tangled roots that lined the wild ravine 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, THE DEAD DRUMMER-BOY. The silken fringes of his once bright eye 45 No more his hand the fierce tattoo shall beat, And gallant men shall fall. Yet may be in some happy home, that one, But more than this what tongue shall tell his story? 46 A NATIONAL HYMN. A NATIONAL HYMN. BY PARK BENJAMIN. REAT God! to whom our nation's woes, We pray Thee mitigate this strife, Such wounds and anguish, groans and tears, Oh, darkly now the tempest rolls, We trust to Thy protecting power O, God of battles! let Thy might AVENGED! "Till, guided by Thy glorious hand, And North and South alike shall raise 47 AVENGED ! BY ORPHEUS C. KERR.* OD'S scales of Justice hang between 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, When the bright sun sinks in the rose-lipped West, Do ye ask who reared those headstones there, And crowned with thorns a sire's gray hair? *R. H. Newell. |