What time it sways, on moonlit nights, But thou thyself shalt come not down THE LAST SCENE. HERE she lieth, white and chill; And she does not know you now. Ah! the grave's a quiet bed: And the tears that you may shed Will not wake her, therefore weep! Weep!-for you have wrought her woe; Ah! too late we come to know What is false and what is true. RUE. THE autumn wind is moaning in the leaves, For I am dead: know you not I am dead? Where I am buried deep and out of sight? Have you not wine and music, in your home, Seek your new love! She calls you, and the tears Are warm on her pale face, and her young breast Is full of doubt and sorrow, for she hears Low whisper'd words that startle her from rest. In from the night! the storm begins to stir. I will be near, and ghostly eyes shall see How you will kiss her lips, and say to her— "Thine always, love!" as once you said to me. AFTER ALL. THE apples are ripe in the orchard, At the cottage-door the grandsire A woman is kneeling beside him ; And far from over the distance The faltering echoes come, Y 1862. Of the flying blast of trumpet Then the grandsire speaks, in a whisper,- The violets star the meadows, But the grandsire's chair is empty, There's a nameless grave on the battle-field, And a pallid, tearless woman A RELIC. I WOULD not give this little flower, For in this little flower I hold A charm from every sin to save; BYRON FORCEYTHE WILLSON. Born 1837-died 1867. THE OLD SERGEANT. (Jan. 1, 1863.) THE Carrier cannot sing to-day the ballads With which he used to go, Rhyming the glad rounds of the happy New Years For the same awful and portentous Shadow, And smote the land last year with desolation, Still darkens every hearth. And the Carrier hears Beethoven's mighty death-march Come up from every mart; And he hears and feels it breathing in his bosom, And beating in his heart. And to-day, a scarr'd and weather-beaten veteran, To tell the story of the Old Year's struggles And the song is his, but not so with the story; Was told in prose to Assistant-Surgeon Austin. By a soldier of Shiloh: By Robert Burton, who was brought up on the Adams, With his death-wound in his side; And who told the story to the Assistant-Surgeon, On the same night that he died. But the singer feels it will better suit the ballad, To tell the story as if what it speaks of Had happen'd but last night. "Come a little nearer, Doctor!-thank you, let me take the cup: Draw your chair up,-draw it closer,-just another little sup! May-be you may think I'm better; but I'm pretty well used up, 66 Doctor! you've done all you could do, but I'm just a going up! Feel my pulse, sir! if you want to, but it ain't much use to try " "Never say that!" said the Surgeon, as he smother'd down a sigh; 66 'It will never do, old comrade! for a soldier to say die!” What you say will make no difference, Doctor! when you come to die." 66 "Doctor! what has been the matter?" faint, they say; "You were very You must try to get to sleep now."-"Doctor! have I been away!" "Not that anybody knows of!" to stay! "Doctor-Doctor! please There is something I must tell you, and you won't have long to stay! "I have got my marching orders, and I'm ready now to go; Doctor, did you say I fainted?-but it couldn't ha' been So, For as sure as I'm a Sergeant, and was wounded at Shiloh, I've this very night been back there, on the old field of 66 Shiloh ! This is all that I remember.-The last time the Lighter came, And the lights had all been lower'd, and the noises much the same, He had not been gone five minutes before something call'd my name: 'ORDERLY SERGEANT ROBERT BURTON!'-just that way it call'd my name. |