And the grandsire speaks in a whisper:
"The end no man can see;

But we give him to his country,

And we give our prayers to Thee."

The violets star the meadows,
The rose-buds fringe the door,
And over the grassy orchard

The pink-white blossoms pour.

But the grandsire's chair is empty,
The cottage is dark and still;

There's a nameless grave in the battle-field,
And a new one under the hill.

And a pallid, tearless woman
By the cold hearth sits alone;
And the old clock in the corner
Ticks on with a steady drone.

WILLIAM WINTER.

OUR CHRISTMAS HYMN.

"GOOD-WILL and peace, peace and good-will!" The burden of the Advent song,

What time the love-charmed waves grew still
To hearken to the shining throng;

The wondering shepherds heard the strain

Who watched by night the slumbering fleece,

The deep skies echoed the refrain,

"Peace and good-will, good-will and peace!"

And wise men hailed the promised sign,
And brought their birth-gifts from the East,
Dear to that Mother as the wine

That hallowed Cana's bridal feast;

But what to these are myrrh or gold,

And what Arabia's costliest gem,
Whose eyes the Child divine behold,
The blessed Babe of Bethlehem.

"Peace and good-will, good-will and peace!"
They sing, the bright ones overhead;
And scarce the jubilant anthems cease
Ere Judah wails her first-born dead;
And Ramah's wild, despairing cry

Fills with great dread the shuddering coast, And Rachel hath but one reply:

"Bring back, bring back my loved and lost!"

So down two thousand years of doom
That cry is borne on wailing winds,
But never star breaks through the gloom,
No cradled peace the watcher finds;
And still the Herodian steel is driven,

And breaking hearts make ceaseless moan,

And still the mute appeal to heaven

Man answers back with groan for groan.

How shall we keep our Christmas-tide,
With that dread Past, its wounds agape,
Forever walking by our side,

A fearful shade, an awful shape!
Can any promise of the Spring

Make green the faded Autumn leaf?
Or who shall say that time will bring
Fair fruit to him who sows but grief?

Wild bells that shake the midnight air
With those dear tones that custom loves,
You wake no sounds of laughter here,
Nor mirth in all our silent groves;
On one broad waste, by hill or flood,
Of ravaged lands your music falls,
And where the happy homestead stood
The stars look down on roofless halls.

At every board a vacant chair

Fills with quick tears some tender And at our maddest sports appear

eye,

Those well-loved forms that will not die.
We lift the glass, our hand is stayed—

We jest, a spectre rises up-
And weeping, though no word is said,
We kiss and pass the silent cup,

And pledge the gallant friend who keeps
His Christmas eve on Malvern's height,
And him, our fair-haired boy, who sleeps
Beneath Virginian snows to-night;
While by the fire she musing broods
On all that was and might have been,
If Shiloh's dank and oozing woods
Had never drunk that crimson stain.

O happy Yules of buried years!

Could ye but come in wonted guise, Sweet as love's earliest kiss appears

When looking back through wistful eyes Would seem those chimes whose voices tell His birth-night with melodious burst, Who, sitting by Samaria's well,

Quenched the lorn widow's life-long thirst.

Ah! yet I trust that all who weep,
Somewhere, at last, will surely find
His rest, if through dark ways they keep
The child-like faith, the prayerful mind;
And some far Christmas morn shall bring
From human ills a sweet release

To loving hearts, while angels sing:
"Peace and good-will, good-will and peace!"

JOHN DICKSON BRUNS (Southern).

NEW YEAR'S EVE.

[Libby Prison, Richmond, Va., December 31, 1863.]

"TIS twelve o'clock! Within my prison dreary,
My head upon my hand, sitting so weary,
Scanning the future, musing on the past,
Pondering the fate that here my lot has cast,
The hoarse cry of the sentry on his beat
Wakens the echoes of the silent street-
"All's well!"

Ah! is it so? My fellow-captive sleeping
Where the barred window strictest watch is keeping,
Dreaming of home and wife and prattling child,
Of the sequestered vale, the mountain wild,
Tell me, when cruel morn shall break again,
Wilt thou repeat the sentinel's refrain—
"All's well!”

And thou, my country! Wounded, pale, and bleeding,

Thy children deaf to a fond mother's pleading,
Stabbing with cruel hate the nurturing breast
To which their infancy in love was prest,
Recount thy wrongs, thy many sorrows name,
Then to the nations, if thou canst, proclaim—
"All's well!”

But through the clouds the sun is slowly breaking; Hope from her long, deep sleep is re-awaking: Speed the time, Father! when the bow of peace, Spanning the gulf, shall bid the tempest cease, When foemen, clasping each other by the hand, Shall shout once more, in a united land

66 All's well!"

F. A. BARTLESON.

ULRIC DAHLGREN.

[Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, son of Admiral Dahlgren, U. S. Navy, distinguished himself by his dashing exploits with the Army of the Potomac, while serving on the staffs of Generals Sigel, Hooker, and Meade, and lost a leg at Gettysburg. While still on crutches, he led an expedition to free the Union prisoners in Libby Prison at Richmond, and fell in a midnight ambush, March 2, 1864, at the age of twentytwo years.]

A FLASH of light across the night,
An eager face, an eye afire:

O lad so true, you yet may rue
The courage of your deep desire !

"Nay, tempt me not; the way is plain-
"Tis but the coward checks his rein;
For there they lie,

And there they cry

For whose dear sake 'twere joy to die!"

He bends unto his saddle-bow,

The steeds they follow two and two;
Their flanks are wet with foam and sweat,
Their riders' locks are damp with dew.

"O comrades, haste! the way is long,
The dirge it drowns the battle song ;
The hunger preys,

The famine slays,

An awful horror veils our ways!"

Beneath the pall of prison wall

The rush of hoofs they seem to hear;
From loathsome guise they lift their eyes,
And beat their bars and bend their ear.

"Ah, God be thanked! our friends are nigh;
He wills it not that thus we die ;

O fiends accurst

Of Want and Thirst,

Our comrades gather-do your worst!"