THE BATTLE AUTUMN (1862).

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And still she walks in golden hours

Through harvest-happy farms;

And still she wears her fruits and flowers
Like jewels on her arms.

What mean the gladness of the plain,

This joy of eve and morn,

The mirth that shakes the beard of grain,
And yellow locks of corn?

Ah! eyes may well be full of tears,
And hearts with hate are hot:
But even-paced come round the years,
And Nature changes not.

She meets with smiles our bitter grief,
With songs our groans of pain ;
She mocks with tint of flower and leaf
The war-field's crimson stain.

Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear
Her sweet thanksgiving psalm;
Too near to God for doubt or fear,
She shares the eternal calm.

She knows the seed lies safe below
The fires that blast and burn;
For all the tears of blood we sow
She waits the rich return.

She sees with clearer eye than ours
The good of suffering born,-
The heart that blossoms like her flowers,
And ripens like her corn.

Oh, give to us, in times like these,

The vision of her eyes;

And make her fields and fruited trees
Our golden prophecies!

Oh, give to us her finer ear!

Above this stormy din

We, too, would hear the bells of cheer

Ring Peace and Freedom in!

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

How Sleep the Brave!

HOW sleep the brave who sink to rest

By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung:
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

WILLIAM COLLINS.

Fo

Freedom's Battle.

'OR Freedom's battle, once begun, Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft, is ever won.

Bear witness, Greece, thy living page!
Attest it, many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusky darkness hid,
Have left a nameless Pyramid,
Thy heroes, though the general doom
Has swept the column from their tomb,

THE LOST LEADER.

A mightier monument command,—
The mountains of their native land!
There points the Muse to stranger's eye
The names of those that cannot die !

LORD BYRON.

The Lost Leader.

UST for a handful of silver he left us;

a

Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,

Lost all the others she lets us devote.

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags, were they purple, his heart had been proud! We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us,-they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,

He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering,-not through his presence;
Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre:
Deeds will be done,-while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.
Blot out his name then,-record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more triumph for devils, and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!

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Life's night begins; let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain; Forced praise on our part-the glimmer of twilight, Never glad, confident morning again!

Best fight on well, for we taught him,-strike gallantly, Aim at our heart, ere we pierce through his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne!

ROBERT BROWNING.

A

Love.

LL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the armèd man,
The statue of the armèd night;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

LOVE.

I played a soft and doleful air;
I sang an old and moving story-

An old, rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined-and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,—

There came and looked him in the face

An angel beautiful and bright;

And that he knew it was a fiend,

This miserable knight!

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