THE BROKEN SWORD.

But hark! as we mourn for the "good and the true,"
For Marshall, Burgwin and the brave Pettigrew,
Through forest and city, o'er river and plain,
A wild cry for vengeance re-echoes again.

For the noble old State, thank God for the sight!
Is burning and arming once more for the fight;
And, dashing the tear from her sorrowing eye,
By Jehovah she swears to conquer or die!

Proud men of the North, from the rebels ye spurn
A lesson of blood you will speedily learn;
And though jubilant now, beware! oh, beware!
For your boastings shall turn to wails of despair.

The Broken Sword.*

BY WALKER MERIWETHER BELL.

"No, never shall this trusty glaive,
Which I so long have borne;

Be grasped by hands less true or brave,
Or coward's side adorn.

Too oft in war its silver beam,

True men have followed far;
As thro' the battle storm its gleam
Flashed like a falling star.

Dear hands have bound it to my side,
While struggling to repress

Unbidden tears, and sweet lips cried,

"Go love, thy cause is blest!"

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Suggested by an incident which occurred after the surrender of Fort Donelson.

And often in his childish joy
Along the shining blade,
The dimpled fingers of my boy
In artless wonder strayed.

Then think you I could lightly fling
At some proud foeman's feet,

A sword round which rich memories cling
So sacred and so sweet?

No, rather let it evermore

Rest 'neath thy rolling flood,

Oh stream, that laves my native shore,
Now darkly stained with blood!"

Then proudly turning from them, he,
Unsheathing as he spoke

The hallowed blade, across his knee
The tempered steel he broke.

And far into the azure stream

The glittering fragments threw,

And sternly watched their last faint gleam. Sink glimmering from his view.

Whate'er he felt, in tear or sigh

Not there he sought relief

It was not for a foeman's eye
To gaze upon his grief.

Roll on, thou river glad and free,
Forever pure and deep;

A stainless hand has given to thee
A holy trust to keep!

THE MARCH OF THE SPOILER.

Thou may'st have treasures rich and rare

Beneath thy restless wave;

But none so precious canst thou bear
As that true soldier's glaive!

METROPOLITAN RECORD.

The March of the Spoiler.

OLD GUARD.

ONE by one the leaves are shaken
From the tree;

One by one our best are taken,
And our hopes fall, hope forsaken,—
When, O God! wilt thou awaken?
When, O Liberty?

Sinks the moon behind the forest
Lost in cloud;

Darkly thou thy way explorest,
So e'en when our need is sorest,
Freedom, thou our trust ignorest,
In thy bloody shroud.

One by one our best are taken,
Hasten we!

By our swift curse overtaken
Despots' might shall yet be shaken
Yet th' Avenger shall awaken

Murdered Liberty!

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The Cameo Bracelet.

BY JAMES R. RANDALL, MARYLAND.

EVA sits on the ottoman there,
Sits by a Psyche carved in stone,
With just such a face and just such an air,
As Esther upon her throne.

She's sifting lint for the brave who bleed,
And I watch her fingers float and flow
Over the linen, as, thread by thread,
It flakes to her lap like snow.

A bracelet clinks on her delicate wrist,

Wrought, as Cellini's were at Rome,
Out of the tears of the Amethyst,
And the wan Vesuvian foam.

And full on the bauble-crest alway-
A cameo image keen and fine-
Glares thy impetuous knife Corday.
And the lava-locks are thine!

I thought of the war-wolves on our trail,
Their gaunt fangs sluiced with gouts of blood;
Till the Past, in a dead mesmeric vale,
Drooped with a wizard flood-

Till the surly blaze through the iron bars
Shot to the hearth with a pang and cry-

And a lank howl plunged from the Champ de Mars
To the column of July-

OUR SHIP.

Till Corday sprang from the gem, I swear,

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And the dove-eyed damsel I knew had flown— For Eva was not on the ottoman there,

By the Psyche carved in stone.

She grew like a Pythoness flushed with fate,
With the incantation in her gaze,
A lip of scorn-an arm of hate-

And a dirge of the "Marseillaise!"

Eva, the vision was not wild,

For

When wreaked on the tyrants of the land— you were transformed to Nemesis, child, With the dagger in your hand!

Our Ship.*

BY HENRY L. FLASH, MOBILE, ALABAMA.

ALL aboard for the Port of the Free!
And every man sprang aboard,
Who had any hope in the days to be,
Or any faith in the Lord.

We cut her loose from the hulk where she lay,

And started her out to sea,

With never a chart of the perilous way

Which leads to the Port of the Free.

For four long years she has struggled and tossed On the foam of the fiery sea,

And many a gallant sailor lost

On the way to the Port of the Free.

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