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

"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.

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,
Or gory felloes of his cannon's wheels.

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

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.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

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,

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
Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there,
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!

Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke

Before the icy wind slow rolls away,

And the bright beams of frosty morning dance
Along the spangling snow. There tracks of blood
Even to the forest's depth, and scattered arms,
And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments
Death's self could change not, mark the dreadful
path

Of the outsallying victors; far behind,

Black ashes note where their proud city stood.
Within yon forest is a gloomy glen,

Each tree which guards its darkness from the day
Waves o'er a warrior's tomb.

War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade,
And to those royal murderers whose mean
thrones

Are bought by crimes of treachery and gore,

The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then,
That night when the love yet unspoken
Leaped up to his lips, —when low, murmured vows
Were pledged to be ever unbroken;
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes off tears that are welling,
And gathers his gun closer up to its place,
As if to keep down the heart-swelling.

He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree,
The footstep is lagging and weary;
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
Toward the shades of the forest so dreary.
Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves?
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looked like a rifle : "Ha! Mary, good by!"
And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing.

The bread they eat, the staff on which they lean. All quiet along the Potomac to-night,

Guards, garbed in blood-red livery, surround
Their palaces, participate the crimes

That force defends, and from a nation's rage
Secure the crown, which all the curses reach
That famine, frenzy, woe, and penury breathe.
These are the hired bravos who defend
The tyrant's throne.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And he thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed,
Far away in the cot on the mountain.

No sound save the rush of the river;
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead,
The picket 's off duty forever.

MRS. ETHEL LYNN BEERS.

CIVIL WAR.

"RIFLEMAN, shoot me a fancy shot

Straight at the heart of yon prowling vidette; Ring me a ball in the glittering spot

That shines on his breast like an amulet!"

"Ah, captain! here goes for a fine-drawn bead, There's music around when my barrel 's in

tune!"

Crack went the rifle, the messenger sped,

And dead from his horse fell the ringing dragoon.

"Now, rifleman, steal through the bushes, and snatch

From your victim some trinket to handsel first
blood;

A button, a loop, or that luminous patch
That gleams in the moon like a diamond stud!'

"O captain! I staggered, and sunk on my track,

When I gazed on the face of that fallen vidette, For he looked so like you, as he lay on his back, That my heart rose upon me, and masters me yet.

-

"But I snatched off the trinket, this locket of gold;

An inch from the centre my lead broke its way,

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

Grows gentle with memories tender,

Of a beautiful lady in bridal array."

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

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