In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won;-
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.

No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our auger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day ; —'
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.

ODE TO PEACE.

DAUGHTER of God! that sit'st on high
Amid the dances of the sky,
And guidest with thy gentle sway
The planets on their tuneful way;

Sweet Peace! shall ne'er again
The smile of thy most holy face,
From thine ethereal dwelling-place,
Rejoice the wretched, weary race

Of discord-breathing men?
Too long, O gladness-giving Queen!
Thy tarrying in heaven has been ;
Too long o'er this fair blooming world
The flag of blood has been unfurled,

Polluting God's pure day;

Whilst, as each maddening people reels, War onward drives his scythed wheels, And at his horses' bloody heels

Shriek Murder and Dismay.

Oft have I wept to hear the cry
Of widow wailing bitterly;

To see the parent's silent tear

For children fallen beneath the spear; And I have felt so sore

The sense of human guilt and woe,
That I, in Virtue's passioned glow,
Have cursed (my soul was wounded so)
The shape of man I bore!

Then come from thy serene abode,
Thou gladness-giving child of God!
And cease the world's ensanguined strife,
And reconcile my soul to life;

For much I long to see,
Ere I shall to the grave descend,
Thy hand its blessed branch extend,
And to the world's remotest end
Wave Love and Harmony!

WAR.

WILLIAM TENNENT.

An! whence yon glare, That fires the arch of heaven?-that dark red smoke Blotting the silver moon? The stars are quenched In darkness, and pure and spangling snow Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers

round!

Hark to that roar,
whose swift and deafening peals
In countless echoes through the mountains ring,
Startling pale midnight on her starry throne!
Now swells the intermingling din; the jar
Frequent and frightful of the bursting bomb;
The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout,
The ceaseless clangor, and the rush of men

Inebriate with rage;— loud, and more loud
The discord grows; till pale death shuts the scene,
And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws
His cold and bloody shroud. - Of all the men
Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there,
In proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts
That beat with anxious life at sunset there,
How few survive, how few are beating now!
All is deep silence, like the fearful calm
That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause ;
Save when the frantic wail of widowed love
Comes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moan
With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay
Wrapt round its struggling powers.

The gray morn Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke

Before the icy wind slow rolls away,

And the bright beams of frosty morning dance
Along the spangling snow. There tracks of blood
Even to the forest's depth, and scattered arms,
And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments
Death's self could change not, mark the dread-
ful path

Of the outsallying victors; far behind,
Black ashes note where their proud city stood.
Within yon forest is a gloomy glen,
Each tree which guards its darkness from the day
Waves o'er a warrior's tomb.

War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade,
And to those royal murderers whose mean thrones
Are bought by crimes of treachery and gore,
The bread they eat, the staff on which they lean.
Guards, garbed in blood-red livery, surround
Their palaces, participate the crimes

That force defends, and from a nation's rage
Secure the crown, which all the curses reach
That famine, frenzy, woe, and penury breathe.
These are the hired bravos who defend
The tyrant's throne.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

HEROISM.

THERE was a time when Etna's silent fire Slept unperceived, the mountain yet entire ; When, conscious of no danger from below, She towered a cloud-capt pyramid of snow. No thunders shook with deep intestine sound The blooming groves, that girdled her around. Her unctuous olives, and her purple vines | (Unfelt the fury of those bursting mines),

The peasant's hopes, and not in vain, assured,
In peace upon her sloping sides matured.
When on a day, like that of the last doom,
A conflagration lab'ring in her womb,
She teemed and heaved with an infernal birth,
That shook the circling seas and solid earth.
Dark and voluminous the vapors rise,
And hang their horrors in the neighb'ring skies,
While through the Stygian veil, that blots the
day,

In dazzling streaks the vivid lightnings play.
But 0, what muse, and in what powers of song,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?
Havoc and devastation in the van,
It marches o'er the prostrate works of man,
Vines, olives, herbage, forests, disappear,
And all the charms of a Sicilian year.

Revolving seasons, fruitless as they pass,
See it an uninformed and idle mass;
Without a soil to invite the tiller's care,
Or blade, that might redeem it from despair.
Yet time at length (what will not time achieve?)
Clothes it with earth, and bids the produce live.
Once more the spiry myrtle crowns the glade,
And ruminating flocks enjoy the shade.
O bliss precarious, and unsafe retreats!
O charming Paradise of short-lived sweets!
The selfsame gale, that wafts the fragrance round,
Brings to the distant ear a sullen sound:
Again the mountain feels the imprisoned foc,
Again pours ruin on the vale below.
Ten thousand swains the wasted scene deplore,
That only future ages can restore.

Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honor draws, Who write in blood the merits of your cause, Who strike the blow, then plead your own defense,

Glory your aim, but justice your pretense;
Behold in Etna's emblematic fires

The mischiefs your ambitious pride inspires! Fast by the stream that bounds your just domain,

And tells you where ye have a right to reign,
A nation dwells, not envious of your throne,
Studious of peace, their neighbors', and their own.
Ill-fated race! how deeply must they rue
Their only crime, vicinity to you!
The trumpet sounds, your legions swarm abroad,
Through the ripe harvest lies their destined road;
At every step beneath their feet they tread
The life of multitudes, a nation's bread!
Earth seems a garden in its loveliest dress
Before them, and behind a wilderness.
Famine, and Pestilence, her first-born son,
Attend to finish what the sword begun ;
And echoing praises, such as fiends might earn,
And Folly pays, resound at your return.

A calm succeeds, but Plenty, with her train

Of heartfelt joys, succeeds not soon again, And years of pining indigence must show What scourges are the gods that rule below.

Yet man, laborious man, by slow degrees (Such is his thirst of opulence and ease), Plies all the sinews of industrious toil, Gleans up the refuse of the general spoil, Rebuilds the towers that smoked upon the plain, And the sun gilds the shining spires again.

Increasing commerce and reviving art Renew the quarrel on the conqueror's part; And the sad lesson must be learned once more, That wealth within is ruin at the door. What are ye, monarchs, laureled heroes, say, But Etnas of the suffering world ye sway? Sweet Nature, stripped of her embroidered robe, Deplores the wasted regions of her globe ; And stands a witness at Truth's awful bar, To prove you there destroyers as ye are.

O, place me in some Heaven-protected isle, Where Peace, and Equity, and Freedom smile; Where no volcano pours his fiery flood, No crested warrior dips his plume in blood; Where Power secures what Industry has won; Where to succeed is not to be undone; A land, that distant tyrants hate in vain, In Britain's isle, beneath a George's reign!

WILLIAM COWPER.

THE BATTLE-FIELD.

ONCE this soft turf, this rivulet's sands,
And fiery hearts and armed hands
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,

Encountered in the battle-cloud.

Ah! never shall the land forget

How gushed the life-blood of her brave, Gushed, warm with hope and courage yet, Upon the soil they fought to save.

Now all is calm and fresh and still;
Alone the chirp of flitting bird,
And talk of children on the hill,
And bell of wandering kine, are heard.

No solemn host goes trailing by

The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain; Men start not at the battle-cry,

O, be it never heard again!

Soon rested those who fought; but thou
Who minglest in the harder strife
For truths which men receive not now,
Thy warfare only ends with life.

A friendless warfare! lingering long Through weary day and weary year;

In honor of the brave

Who on the battle-field have found a grave;
I know that o'er their bones
Have grateful hands piled monumental stones.
Some of those piles I've seen :
The one at Lexington upon the green
Where the first blood was shed,

And to my country's independence led ;
And others, on our shore,

The "

Battle Monument" at Baltimore,
And that on Bunker's Hill.

Ay, and abroad, a few more famous still;
Thy "tomb," Themistocles,

That looks out yet upon the Grecian seas,
And which the waters kiss

That issue from the gulf of Salamis.

And thine, too, have I seen,

Thy mound of earth, Patroclus, robed in green,
That, like a natural knoll,

Sheep climb and nibble over as they stroll,
Watched by some turbaned boy,
Upon the margin of the plain of Troy.
Such honors grace the bed,

I know, whereon the warrior lays his head,
And hears, as life ebbs out,

The conquered flying, and the conqueror's shout;
But as his eye grows dim,

What is a column or a mound to him?

What, to the parting soul,

The mellow note of bugles? What the roll
Of drums? No, let me die

Where the blue heaven bends o'er me lovingly,
And the soft summer air,

As it goes by me, stirs my thin white hair,
And from my forehead dries

The death-damp as it gathers, and the skies

Seem waiting to receive

My soul to their clear depths! Or let me leave
The world when round my bed

Wife, children, weeping friends are gathered,
And the calm voice of prayer
And holy hymning shall my soul prepare
To go and be at rest

With kindred spirits, — spirits who have blessed
The human brotherhood

By labors, cares, and counsels for their good.

JOHN PIERPONT.

MY AUTUMN WALK.

Ox woodlands ruddy with autumn
The amber sunshine lies;

I look on the beauty round me,
And tears come into my eyes.

For the wind that sweeps the meadows Blows out of the far Southwest,