Knowing God's own time is best,
In a patient hope I rest

For the full day-breaking!"

So the laird of Ury said,
Turning slow his horse's head

Towards the Tolbooth prison, Where, through iron gates, he heard Poor disciples of the Word

Preach of Christ arisen!

Not in vain, confessor old,
Unto us the tale is told

Of thy day of trial!
Every age on him who strays
From its broad and beaten ways
Pours its sevenfold vial.

Happy he whose inward ear
Angel comfortings can hear,

O'er the rabble's laughter;

And, while hatred's fagots burn,
Glimpses through the smoke discern
Of the good hereafter.

Knowing this,
that never yet
Share of truth was vainly set

In the world's wide fallow;
After hands shall sow the seed,
After hands from hill and mead

Reap the harvests yellow.

Thus, with somewhat of the seer,
Must the moral pioneer

From the future borrow,

Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,
And, on midnight's sky of rain,
Paint the golden morrow!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

ALL day long the storm of battle through the startled valley swept ;

All night long the stars in heaven o'er the slain sad vigils kept.

O the ghastly upturned faces gleaming whitely through the night!

O the heaps of mangled corses in that dim sepulchral light!

One by one the pale stars faded, and at length the morning broke;

But not one of all the sleepers on that field of death awoke.

of lambent flame.

For their saintly hearts yearned o'er it in that hour of sorest need,

And they felt that Death was holy, and it sanctified the deed.

But

they smiled and kissed each other when their new strange task was o'er,

And the form that lay before them its unwonted garments wore.

Then with slow and weary labor a small grave they hollowed out,

And they lined it with the withered grass and leaves that lay about.

But the day was slowly breaking ere their holy work was done,

And in crimson pomp the morning again heralded the sun. then those little maidens children of our foes

And

they were

of stars,

whispering low,

turbed repose.

ANONYMOUS.

NOT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.

brooklet's murmuring flow?

O No, no, let me lie

Not on a field of battle when I die!

Let not the iron tread

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
Thunders along, and tramples me beneath

His heavy squadron's heels,

And they did not pause nor falter till, with throbbing hearts, they stood

Where the drummer-boy was lying in that partial solitude.

They had brought some simple garments from

I know that beauty's eye

their wardrobe's scanty store,

hands they bore.

Then they quickly knelt beside him, crushing back the pitying tears,

For they had no time for weeping, nor for any girlish fears.

And

And brazen helmets dance,
sunshine flashes on the lifted lance;
I know that bards have sung,
And people shouted till the welkin rung,
In honor of the brave

Who on the battle-field have found a grave;

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,

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.

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

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,

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.

"Ha! rifleman, fling me the locket!-'t is she, My brother's young bride, and the fallen dragoon

Was her husband Hush! soldier, 't was Heaven's decree,

But that parting was years, long years ago,
He wandered away to a foreign land;
And our dear old mother will never know
That he died to-night by his brother's hand.