Thrice since then had the lanes been white,
And the orchards sweet with apple-bloom;
And now, when the cows came back at night,
The feeble father drove them home.

For news had come to the lonely farm
That three were lying where two had lain;
And the old man's tremulous, palsied arm
Could never lean on a son's again.

The summer day grew cool and late:

He went for the cows when the work was done; But down the lane, as he opened the gate, He saw them coming one by one:

Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess,

Shaking their horns in the evening wind, Cropping the buttercups out of the grass;But who was it following close behind?

Loosely swung in the idle air

The empty sleeve of army blue;
And worn and pale, from the crisping hair,
Looked out a face that the father knew.

For Southern prisons will sometimes yawn,
And yield their dead unto life again;

And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn,
In golden glory at last may wane.

The

great tears sprang to their meeting eyes; For the heart must speak when the lips are

dumb:

And under the silent evening skies

Together they followed the cattle home.

KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.

THE SILENT MARCH.

[In one of the campaigns of the Army of Northern Virginia, while General Lee was lying asleep by the wayside an army of fifteen thousand men passed by in silence, anxious not to disturb his rest.]

O'ERCOME with weariness and care,
The war-worn veteran lay

On the green turf of his native land,
And slumbered by the way.

The breeze that sighed across his brow,
And smoothed its deepened lines,
Fresh from his own loved mountains bore
The murmur of their pines;

And the glad sound of waters,

The blue rejoicing streams,

Whose sweet familiar tones were blent
With the music of his dreams.

They brought no sound of battle's din,
Shrill fife or clarion,

But only tenderest memories

Of his own fair Arlington.

While thus the chieftain slumbered,
Forgetful of his care,

The hollow tramp of thousands
Came sounding through the air.

With ringing spur and sabre,

And trampling feet, they come,
Gay plume and rustling banner,
And fife and trump and drum.
But soon the foremost column
Sees where, beneath the shade,
In slumber, calm as childhood,
Their wearied chief is laid.

And down the line a murmur
From lip to lip there ran,
Until the stilly whisper

Had spread to rear from van.
And o'er the host a silence
As deep and sudden fell,
As though some mighty wizard
Had hushed them with a spell.
And every sound was muffled,
And every soldier's tread
Fell lightly as a mother's

'Round her baby's cradle-bed.

And rank and file and column,
So softly by they swept,
It seemed a ghostly army
Had passed him as he slept.

But mightier than enchantment
Was that with magic wove—

The spell that hushed their voices-
Deep reverence and love.

ANONYMOUS.

LEE TO THE REAR.

[Founded on an incident in one of the battles of the Wilderness, when General Lee seized the colors of a Texan regiment to lead a charge against a well-nigh impregnable position. The colonel promised to carry the position if Lee would go to the rear; and when the soldiers heard the promise and expostulation, they repeated it, and "Lee to the rear !" was shouted down the line.]

DAWN of a pleasant morning in May

Broke through the Wilderness cool and gray; While perched in the tallest tree-tops, the birds Were carolling Mendelssohn's " Songs without

words."

Far from the haunts of men remote,
The brook brawled on with a liquid note;
And Nature, all tranquil and lovely, wore
The smile of the spring, as in Eden of yore.

Little by little as daylight increased,
And deepened the roseate flush in the East-
Little by little did morning reveal
Two long glittering lines of steel;

Where two hundred thousand bayonets gleam,
Tipped with the light of the earliest beam,
And the faces are sullen and grim to see
In the hostile armies of Grant and Lee.

All of a sudden, ere rose the sun,
Pealed on the silence the opening gun-
A little white puff of smoke there came,
And anon the valley was wreathed in flame.

Down on the left of the Rebel lines,
Where a breastwork stands in a copse of pines,
Before the Rebels their ranks can form,
The Yankees have carried the place by storm.

Stars and Stripes on the salient wave,
Where many a hero has found a grave,

And the gallant Confederates strive in vain

The ground they have drenched with their blood, to regain.

Yet louder the thunder of battle roared-
Yet a deadlier fire on the columns poured;
Slaughter infernal rode with Despair,
Furies twain, through the murky air.

Not far off, in the saddle there sat

A gray-bearded man in a black slouched hat;
Not much moved by the fire was he,
Calm and resolute Robert Lee.

Quick and watchful he kept his eye
On the bold Rebel brigades close by,-

Reserves that were standing (and dying) at ease,
While the tempest of wrath toppled over the trees.

For still with their loud, deep, bull-dog bay,
The Yankee batteries blazed away,
And with every murderous second that sped
A dozen brave fellows, alas! fell dead.

The grand old graybeard rode to the space
Where Death and his victims stood face to face,
And silently waved his old slouched hat-
A world of meaning there was in that!

"Follow me! Steady! We'll save the day!"
This was what he seemed to say;
And to the light of his glorious eye
The bold brigades thus made reply:

"We'll go forward, but you must go back❞— And they moved not an inch in the perilous track: "Go to the rear, and we'll send them to hell!" And the sound of the battle was lost in their yell.

Turning his bridle, Robert Lee

Rode to the rear. Like waves of the sea,
Bursting the dikes in their overflow,
Madly his veterans dashed on the foe.

And backward in terror that foe was driven,
Their banners rent and their columns riven,

Wherever the tide of battle rolled

Over the Wilderness, wood and wold.

Sunset out of a crimson sky

Streamed o'er a field of ruddier dye,

And the brook ran on with a purple stain,

From the blood of ten thousand foemen slain.