S°

Bearney at Seven Pines.

that soldierly legend is still on its journey, —

That story of Kearney who knew not to yield ! 'Twas the day when with Jameson, fierce Berry, and

Birney,

Against twenty thousand he rallied the field.

Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest,

Where the dead lay in clumps through the dwarf

oak and pine,

Where the aim from the thicket was surest and

nighest,

No charge like Phil Kearney's along the whole

line.

When the battle went ill, and the bravest were solemn,

Near the dark Seven Pines, where we still held

our ground,

He rode down the length of the withering column, And his heart at our war-cry leapt up with a bound.

He snuffed, like his charger, the wind of the pow

der,

KEARNEY AT SEVEN PINES.

His sword waved us on, and we answered the

sign;

Loud our cheer as we rushed, but his laugh rang the louder;

"There's the devil's own fun, boys, along the whole line!"

How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brighten

In the one hand still left, and the reins in his

teeth!

He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten, But a soldier's glance shot from his visor beneath. Up came the reserves to the mellay infernal,

Asking where to go in, through the clearing or pine?

"Oh, anywhere! Forward! 'Tis all the same, colonel :

You'll find lovely fighting along the whole line!"

Oh, evil the black shroud of night at Chantilly, That hid him from sight of his brave men and tried!

Foul, foul sped the bullet that clipped the white lily, The flower of our knighthood, the whole army's

pride!

Yet we dream that he still, in that shadowy region Where the dead form their ranks at the wan drum

Rides on, as of old, down the length of his legion, And the word still is Forward! along the whole

line.

- Edmund Clarence Stedman.

AFTER ALL.

After All.

THE apples are ripe in the orchard,
The work of the reaper is done,

And the golden woodlands redden
In the blood of the dying sun.

At the cottage door the grandsire
Sits pale in his easy chair,
While the gentle wind of twilight
Plays with his silver hair.

A woman is kneeling beside him;
A fair young head is pressed,
In the first wild passion of sorrow,
Against his agèd breast.

And far from over the distance
The faltering echoes come
Of the flying blast of trumpet

And the rattling roll of the drum.

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

But we gave him to his country,

And we give our prayers to thee."

The violets star the meadows,
The rosebuds 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.