The very trees were stripped and bare; The barns that once held yellow grain Were heaped with harvests of the slain; The cattle bellowed on the plain, The turkeys screamed with might and main, With strange shells bursting in each nest. Just where the tide of battle turns, Erect and lonely stood old John Burns. He wore an ancient long buff vest, Yellow as saffron, but his best; And, buttoned over his manly breast, Was a bright blue coat, with a rolling collar, And large gilt buttons, - size of a dollar, With tails that the country-folk called "swaller." He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned hat, White as the locks on which it sat. Never had such a sight been seen For forty years on the village green, Since old John Burns was a country beau, And went to the "quiltings" long ago. Close at his elbows all that day, Veterans of the Peninsula, Sunburnt and bearded, charged away; And striplings, downy of lip and chin, Glanced, as they passed, at the hat he wore, And hailed him, from out their youthful lore, With scraps of a slangy répertoire: "How are you, White Hat!" "Put her through!" "Your head's level," and "Bully for you!" While Burns, unmindful of jeer and scoff, With his long brown rifle, and bell-crown hat, 'T was but a moment, for that respect Which clothes all courage their voices checked. Until, as they gazed, there crept an awe Through the ranks in whispers, and some men saw, In the antique vestments and long white hair, The Past of the Nation in battle there; And some of the soldiers since declare That the gleam of his old white hat afar, Like the crested plume of the brave Navarre, That day was their oriflamme of war. So raged the battle. You know the rest: How the rebels, beaten and backward pressed, Broke at the final charge, and ran. At which John Burns a practical man Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows, And then went back to his bees and cows. That is the story of old John Burns; This is the moral the reader learns : In fighting the battle, the question's whether You'll show a hat that's white, or a feather! G THE TALE OF A PONY. NAME of my heroine, simply “Rose” Surname, tolerable only in prose; Habitat, Paris, - that is where She resided for change of air; Etat xx; complexion fair, Rich, good-looking, and débonnaire, Smarter than Jersey-lightning - There! That's her photograph, done with care. In Paris, whatever they do besides, EVERY LADY IN FULL DRESS RIDES ! Sweeping the filth of a dirty street; |