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"We strove alike for truth's behoof,
With honest faith and love sincere,-
For God and country, right and roof,
And issues that do not appear,

But wait with Heaven the awful proof."

A tottering figure reached the door;
The brother fell upon the bed,

And, in each other's arms once more,
With breast to breast, and head to head,-
Twin barks, they drifted from the shore;

And backward on the sobbing air
Came the same words from warring lips:
"God save my country!" and the prayer
Still wailing from the drifting ships,
Returned in measures of despair;

Till far, at the horizon's verge,
They passed beyond the tearful eyes
That could not know if in the surge
They sank at last, or in the skies
Forgot the burden of their dirge!

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In Northern blue and Southern brown,
Twin coffins and a single grave,
They laid the weary warriors down;
And hands that strove to slay and save
Had equal rest and like renown.

For in the graveyard's hallowed close
A woman's love made neutral soil,
Where it might lay the forms of those
Who, resting from their fateful broil,
Had ceased forever to be foes.

To her and those who clung to her-
From manly eldest down to least-
The obsequies, the sepulchre,

The chanting choir, the weeping priest,
And all the throng and all the stir

Of sympathetic country-folk,
And all the signs of death and dole,
Were but a dream that beat and broke
In chilling waves on heart and soul,
Till in the silence they awoke.

She was a widow, and she wept;
She was a mother, and she smiled;

Her faith with those she loved was kept,

Though still the war-cry, fierce and wild,
Around the harried country swept.

No more with this had she to do;
God and her little ones were left;
And unto these, serene and true,
She gave the life so soon bereft
Of its first gifts, and rose anew

At duty's call to make amends
For all her loss of loves and lands;
And found, to speed her noble ends,
The succor of uplifting hands,
And solace of a thousand friends.

And o'er her precious graves she built
A stone whereon the yellow boss
Of sword on sword with naked hilt
Lay as the symbol of her cross,
In mournful meaning, carved and gilt.

And underneath were graved the lines:
"THEY DID THE DUTY THAT THEY SAW;
BOTH WROUGHT AT GOD'S SUPREME DESIGNS,
AND, UNDER LOVE'S ETERNAL LAW,
EACH LIFE WITH EQUAL BEAUTY SHINES."

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Peace, with its large and lilied calms,
Like moonlight sleeps on land and lake,
With healing in its dewy balms-

For pride that pines and hearts that ache,-
From Huron to the land of palms;

From rock-bound Massachusetts Bay
To San Francisco's Golden Gate;
From where Itasca's waters play,
To those which plunge or palpitate
A thousand happy leagues away,

And drink, among her dunes and bars,
The Mississippi's boiling tide!

Still floating from a million spars,
The nation's ensign, undefied,

Blazons its galaxy of stars.

No more to party strife the slave,
And freed from hate's infernal spells,
Love pays her tribute to the brave,
And snows her holy immortelles
O'er friend and foe, where'er his grave.

On every decoration day

The white-haired Mildred finds her mounds
Decked with the garnered bloom of May-
Flowers planted first within her wounds,
And fed by love as white as they.

And Philip's first-born, strong and sage,
Through Heaven's design or happy chance
Finds the old church his heritage,

And still, The Mistress of the Manse,
Sits Mildred, in her silver age.

WIFE, CHILDREN, AND FRIENDS.-W. A. SPENCER.

When the black-lettered list to the gods was presented— The list of what fate for each mortal intends

At the long string of ills a kind goddess relented,

And slipped in three blessings-wife, children, and friends.

In vain surly Pluto maintained he was cheated,

For justice divine could not compass its ends; The scheme of man's penance he said was defeated,

For earth becomes heaven with-wife,children, and friends.

If the stock of our bliss is in stranger hands vested,
The fund, ill-secured, oft iu bankruptcy ends,
But the heart issues bills which are never protested,
When drawn on the firm of wife, children, and friends.

Though valor still glows in his life s dying embers,
The death-wounded tar, who his colors defends,
Drops a tear of regret as he, dying, remembers

How blest was his home with-wife, children, and friends.

The soldier, whose deeds live immorta, in story,
Whom duty to far-distant latitudes sends,

With transport would barter old ages of glory
For one happy day with wife, children, and friends.

Though spice-breathing gales on his caravan hover,
Though for him Arabia's fragrance ascends,

The merchant still thinks of the woodbines that cover
The bower where he sat with wife, children, and friends.

The dayspring of youth, still unclouded by sorrow,
Alone on itself for enjoyment depends;

But drear is the twilight of age, if it borrow

No warmth from the smile of wife, children, and friends.

Let the breath of renown ever freshen and nourish
The laurel which o'er the dead favorite bends;
O'er me wave the willow--and long may it flourish--
Bedewed with the tears of wife, children, and friends.

MOTHER, HOME, AND HEAVEN.

Mother, Home, and Heaven, says a writer, are three of the most beautiful words in the English language. And truly I think that they may well be called so-what word strikes so forcibly upon the heart as mother? Coming from childhood's sunny lips, it has a peculiar charm; for it speaks of one to whom they look and trust for protection.

A mother is the truest friend we have; when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends, who rejoiced with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.

The kind voice of a mother has often been the means of reclaiming an erring one from the path of wickedness to a life of happiness and prosperity.

The lonely convict, immured in his dreary cell, thinks of the innocent days of his childhood, and feels that though other friends forsake him, he has still a guardian angel watching over him; and that, however dark his sins may have been, they have all been forgiven and forgotten by her.

Mother is indeed a sweet name, and her station is indeed a holy one; for in her hands are placed minds, to be moulded almost at her will; aye, fitted to shine-not much, it is true, on earth, compared, if taught aright, with the dazzling splendor which awaits them in heaven.

Home! how often we hear persons speak of the home of their childhood. Their minds seem to delight in dwelling upon the recollections of joyous days spent beneath the parental roof, when their young and happy hearts were as light and free as the birds who made the woods resound with the melody of their cheerful voices. What a blessing it is, when

weary with care, and burdened with sorrow, to have a home to which we can go, and there, in the midst of friends we love, forget our troubles and dwell in peace and quietness.

Heaven! that land of quiet rest-toward which those, who, worn down and tired with the toils of earth, direct their frail barks over the troubled waters of life, and after a long and dangerous passage, find it--safe in the haven of eternal bliss. Heaven is the home that awaits us beyond the grave. There the friendships formed on earth, and which cruel death has severed, are never more to be broken: and parted friends shall meet again, never more to be separated.

It is an inspiring hope that, when we separate here on earth at the summons of death's angel, and when a few more years have rolled over the heads of those remaining, if "faithful unto death," we shall meet again in Heaven, our eternal home, there to dwell in the presence of our Heavenly Father, and go no more out forever.

HALF AN HOUR BEFORE SUPPER.-BRET HARTE.

"So she's here, your unknown Dulcinea,-the lady you met on the train,

And you really believe she would know you if you were to meet her again?"

"Of course," he replied, “she would know me; there never was womankind yet

Forgot the effect she inspired; she excuses, but does not forget."

"Then you told her your love?" asked the elder; the young, er looked up with a smile,

"I sat by her side half an hour; what else was I doing the while!

"What, sit by the side o. a woman as fair as the sun in the sky,

And look somewhere else lest the dazzle flash back from your own to her eye?

"No, I hold that the speech of the tongue be as frank and as bold as the look,

And I held up herself to herself-that was more than she got from her book."

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