FLAG OF TRUCE.

LET us bury our dead:

Since we may not of vantage or victory prate; And our army, so grand in the onslaught of late, All crippled has shrunk to its trenches instead,For the carnage was great:

Let us bury our dead.

Let us bury our dead:

Oh, we thought to surprise you, as, panting and flushed,

From our works to assault you we valiantly rushed: But you fought like the gods-till we faltered and fled,

And the earth, how it blushed!
Let us bury our dead.

So we bury our dead

From the field; from the range and the crash of the

gun;

From the kisses of love; from the face of the sun ! Oh, the silence they keep while we dig their last bed! Lay them in, one by one:

So we bury our dead.

Fast we bury our dead:

All too scanty the time, let us work as we may,

For the foe burns for strife and our ranks are at

bay:

O'er the graves we are digging what legions will tread

Swift, and eager to slay,

Though we bury our dead.

See, we bury our dead!

Oh, they fought as the young and the dauntless will

fight,

Who fancy their war is a war for the right!

Right or wrong, it was precious--this blood they have shed:

Surely God will requite,

And we bury our dead.

Yes, we bury our dead.

If they erred as they fought, will He charge them with blame,

When their hearts beat aright, and the truth was their aim?

Nay, never in vain has such offering bled—

North or South, 'tis the same

Fast we bury our dead.

Thus we bury our dead.

Oh, ye men of the North, with your banner that

waves

Far and wide o'er our Southland, made rugged with

graves,

Are ye verily right, that so well ye

have sped

?

Were we wronging our slaves?
Well-we bury our dead.

Ah, we bury our dead!

And granting you all you have claimed on the whole

Are we 'spoiled of our birthright and stricken in

soul,

To be spurned at Heaven's court when its records are read ?

Nay, expound not the scroll
Till we bury our dead!

Haste and bury our dead!

No time for revolving of right and of wrong;

We must venture our souls with the rest of the throng;

And our God must be Judge, as He sits overhead,
Of the weak and the strong,
While we bury our dead.

Now peace to our dead:

Fair grow the sweet blossoms of Spring where they

lie....

Hark! the musketry roars, and the rifles reply; Oh, the fight will be close and the carnage be dread;

To the ranks let us hie,

We have buried our dead.

AMANDA T. JONES.

"STACK ARMS!"

[Written in prison at Fort Delaware, Del., on hearing of the surrender of General Lee.]

"STACK ARMS!" I've gladly heard the cry
When, weary with the dusty tread

Of marching troops, as night drew nigh,
I sank upon my soldier bed,
And calmly slept; the starry dome

Of heaven's blue arch my canopy,
And mingled with my dreams of home
The thoughts of Peace and Liberty.

"Stack Arms !" I've heard it when the shout
Exulting ran along our line,

Of foes hurled back in bloody rout,
Captured, dispersed; its tones divine
Then came to mine enraptured ear,
Guerdon of duty nobly done,

And glistened on my cheek the tear
Of grateful joy for victory won.

Stack Arms!" In faltering accents, slow
And sad, it creeps from tongue to tongue,

A broken, murmuring wail of woe,

From manly hearts by anguish wrung.

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