What time our battle instincts stir,
Flash bare beneath the sky.
We feel the rowels of Honor prick
As keenly as did he

Who sowed his savage epoch thick
With perfect chivalry.

Coeur-de-Leons on every field,
Sweet saints in every home,

Through whose dear helping stands revealed
The joy of martyrdom;

Compassed by whose assuring loves,

Our comrades dared and died As blithely as a bridegroom moves To meet his waiting bride.

Though tears be salt, and wormwood still
Is bitter to the taste,

God's heart is tender, and He will
Let no life fail or waste.
O mothers of our Gracchi! when
You gave your jewels up,

A continent of hopeless men

Grew rich in boundless hope.

Renown stands mute beside the graves
With which the land is scarred;
Unheralded, our splendid braves
Went forth unto the Lord:
No poet hoards their humble names
In his immortal scrolls,

But not the less the darkness flames
With their clear-shining souls.

Beneath the outward havoc, they
The inward mercy saw;
High intuitions of Duty lay
Upon them, strong as law;

Athwart the bloody horizon

They marked God's blazing sword,

And heard His dreadful thunders run
When but the cannon roared.

Shield-bearers of the Sovran Truth!
We count your costly deeds
Devoutly as a maiden doth

Her consecrated beads.

You thrill us with the calms which flow
In Eucharistic wine;

And by your straight tall lives we know
That Life is still divine.

RICHARD REALF.

A DIRGE.

Low lies in dust the honored head,
Cold is the hand that held the sword;

Slowly we bear them to the dead,

And lay them down without a word.

What is there to be said or done?
They are departed, we remain ;

Their race is run, their crowns are won,
They will not come to us again.

Cut off by fate before their prime

Could harvest half the golden years,
All they could leave they left us-time,
All we could give we gave them-tears.

Would they were here, or we were there,
Or both together, heart to heart.
O death in life, we cannot bear
To be so near-and so apart!

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.

LINES FROM "COMMEMORATION ODE." [Recited at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865.] WE sit here in the Promised Land

That flows with Freedom's honey and milk; But 'twas they won it, sword in hand, Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk.

We welcome back our bravest and our best ;— Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest, Who went forth brave and bright as any here! I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, But the sad strings complain,

And will not please the ear:

I sweep them for a pæan, but they wane
Again and yet again

Into a dirge, and die away in pain.

In these brave ranks I only see the gaps,

Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, Dark to the triumph which they died to gain : Fitlier may others greet the living,

For me the past is unforgiving;

I with uncovered head

Salute the sacred dead,

Who went, and who return not.—Say not so!
'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay,
But the high faith that failed not by the way;
Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave;
No bar of endless night exiles the brave;

And to the saner mind

We rather seem the dead that stayed behind.
Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow!
For never shall their aureoled presence lack:
I see them muster in a gleaming row,
With ever-youthful brows that nobler show;
We find in our dull road their shining track;
In every nobler mood

We feel the orient of their spirit glow,
Part of our life's unalterable good,
Of all our saintlier aspiration;

They come transfigured back,

Secure from change in their high-hearted ways,
Beautiful evermore, and with the rays

Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!

Pure from passion's mixture rude
Ever to base earth allied,

But with far-heard gratitude,

Still with heart and voice renewed,

To heroes living and dear martyrs dead,

The strain should close that consecrates our brave.

Lift the heart and lift the head!

Lofty be its mood and grave,
Not without a martial ring,
Not without a prouder tread
And a peal of exultation:
Little right has he to sing

Through whose heart in such an hour
Beats no march of conscious power,
Sweeps no tumult of elation !

'Tis no Man we celebrate,

By his country's victories great,
A hero half and half the whim of Fate,
But the pith and marrow of a Nation
Drawing force from all her men,
Highest, humblest, weakest, all,
For her time of need, and then
Pulsing it again through them,

Till the basest can no longer cower,

Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall,

Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem.

Come back, then, noble pride, for 'tis her dower!

How could poet ever tower,

If his passions, hopes, and fears,

If his triumphs and his tears,

Kept not measure with his people?

Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves !

Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple! Banners, advance with triumph, bend your staves! And from every mountain-peak

Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he, And so leap on in light from sea to sea,

Till the glad news be sent

Across a kindling continent,

Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver : "Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her!

She that lifts up the manhood of the poor,
She of the open soul and open door,

With room about her hearth for all mankind!
The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more;
From her bold front the helm she doth unbind,
Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin,
And bids her navies, that so lately hurled
Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in,
Swimming like birds of calm along the unharm-
ful shore.

No challenge sends she to the elder world,

That looked askance and hated; a light scorn Plays o'er her mouth, as round her mighty knees She calls her children back, and waits the morn Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas."

Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release! Thy God, in these distempered days,

Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways, And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace! Bow down in prayer and praise!

No poorest in thy borders but may now

Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow.
O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more!

Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair
O'er such sweet brows as never other wore,
And letting thy set lips,

Freed from wrath's pale eclipse,