THE BATTLE AUTUMN (1862). 95 And still she walks in golden hours Through harvest-happy farms; And still she wears her fruits and flowers What mean the gladness of the plain, This joy of eve and morn, The mirth that shakes the beard of grain, Ah! eyes may well be full of tears, She meets with smiles our bitter grief, Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear She knows the seed lies safe below She sees with clearer eye than ours Oh, give to us, in times like these, The vision of her eyes; And make her fields and fruited trees Oh, give to us her finer ear! Above this stormy din We, too, would hear the bells of cheer Ring Peace and Freedom in! JOHN G. WHITTIER. How Sleep the Brave! HOW sleep the brave who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest! By fairy hands their knell is rung, WILLIAM COLLINS. Fo Freedom's Battle. 'OR Freedom's battle, once begun, Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft, is ever won. Bear witness, Greece, thy living page! THE LOST LEADER. A mightier monument command,— LORD BYRON. The Lost Leader. UST for a handful of silver he left us; a Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others she lets us devote. They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, Rags, were they purple, his heart had been proud! We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Burns, Shelley, were with us,-they watch from their graves! He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! We shall march prospering,-not through his presence; 97 Life's night begins; let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain; Forced praise on our part-the glimmer of twilight, Never glad, confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught him,-strike gallantly, Aim at our heart, ere we pierce through his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne! ROBERT BROWNING. A Love. LL thoughts, all passions, all delights, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I The moonshine stealing o'er the scene, She leaned against the armèd man, Few sorrows hath she of her own, The songs that make her grieve. LOVE. I played a soft and doleful air; An old, rude song, that suited well She listened with a flitting blush, I told her of the knight that wore I told her how he pined-and ah! She listened with a flitting blush, But when I told the cruel scorn That crazed that bold and lovely knight, That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade, There came and looked him in the face An angel beautiful and bright; And that he knew it was a fiend, This miserable knight! 99 85064B |