Like victims of a midnight dream,
We move, we know not how nor why;
For life and hope like phantoms seem,
And it would be relief-to die!

JOSEPH BLYNth Alston.

"ASHES OF GLORY."

FOLD up the gorgeous silken sun,
By bleeding martyrs blest,
And heap the laurels it has won
Above its place of rest.

No trumpet's note need harshly blare-
No drum funereal roll-
Nor trailing sables drape the bier
That frees a dauntless soul.

It lived with Lee, and decked his brow
From Fate's empyreal palm;

It sleeps the sleep of Jackson now,
As spotless and as calm.

It was outnumbered-not outdone;
And they shall shuddering tell,
Who struck the blow, its latest gun
Flashed ruin as it fell.

Sleep, shrouded ensign !—not the breeze
That smote the victor tar

With death, across the heaving seas
Of fiery Trafalgar ;—

Not Arthur's knights, amid the gloom
Their knightly deeds have starred,
Nor Gallic Henry's matchless plume,
Nor peerless-born Bayard;-

Not all that antique fables feign
And Orient dreams disgorge,
Nor yet the silver cross of Spain,
And lion of St. George,-

Can bid thee pale. Proud emblem, still
Thy crimson glory shines

Beyond the lengthened shades that fill
Their proudest kingly lines.

Sleep, in thine own historic night,—
And be thy blazoned scroll:

A warrior's banner takes its flight
To greet the warrior's soul!

A. J. REQUIER.

THE CONQUERED BANNER.

This is one of the many famous poems whose authorship has been in dispute. Simms, in his "War Poetry of the South," credits it to "Anna Peyre Dinnies, of Louisiana; and Longfellow's "Poems of Places" gives it as anonymous. But Father Ryan is unquestionably the author. It appears in the complete edition of his Poems (Baltimore, 1883), and he has written the editor of the present collection: "I wrote The Conquered Banner' at Knoxville, Tenn., one evening soon after Lee's surrender, when my mind was engrossed with thoughts of our dead soldiers and dead cause. It was first published in the New York Freeman's Journal! I never had any idea that the poem, written in less than an hour, would attain celebrity. No doubt the circumstances of its appearance lent it much of its fame. In expressing my own emotions at the time, I echoed the unuttered feelings of the Southern people; and so 'The Conquered Banner' became the requiem of the Lost Cause."]

FURL that Banner, for 'tis weary,
Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary:
Furl it, fold it, it is best;

For there's not a man to wave it,
And there's not a sword to save it,
And there's not one left to lave it

In the blood which heroes gave it,
And its foes now scorn and brave it:
Furl it, hide it, let it rest!

Take that Banner down! 'tis tattered;
Broken is its staff and shattered,
And the valiant hosts are scattered
Over whom it floated high;

Oh, 'tis hard for us to fold it,

Hard to think there's none to hold it,
Hard that those who once unrolled it
Now must furl it with a sigh!

Furl that Banner-furl it sadly;
Once ten thousands hailed it gladly,
And ten thousands wildly, madly,

Swore it should forever wave

Swore that foemen's swords could never
Hearts like theirs entwined dissever,
And that flag should float forever

O'er their freedom or their grave!

Furl it!-for the hands that grasped it,
And the hearts that fondly clasped it;
Cold and dead are lying low;
And the Banner-it is trailing,
While around it sounds the wailing
Of its people in their woe;

For though conquered, they adore it-
Love the cold dead hands that bore it,
Weep for those who fell before it,
Pardon those who trailed and tore it;
And oh, wildly they deplore it,

Now to furl and fold it so!

Furl that Banner! True, 'tis gory,
Yet 'tis wreathed around with glory,
And 'twill live in song and story

Though its folds are in the dust!