Watching.

BY ANNIE C. KETCHUM.

[Surely nothing was ever written more exquisitely pure than this. The Spirit of Poetry with which it is imbued seems to come from some rarer Eden atmosphere which is always calm and clear, and yet lovely with a golden glow, like the pure October skies which now bend over us.]

FAIRER far

Than the divinest dream of him who drew
The stately Eos, guiding up the blue
Her gemmed and golden car,

From out the tent of Night

Cometh the radiant Morning-brushing back
The clouds, like blossoms, from her rosy track,
With diamond dews bedight.

The priestly mocking-bird

Waketh the grosbeak with his early hymn,
And down the slopes and through the forests dim,
Sweet, holy sounds are heard.

Proud, regal purple bells

Swinging from the fox-glove's plume, and daisies white,
And silvery fairy's fringe, are gleaming bright
O'er all the grassy swells.

Pomegranates, golden brown,

Drop delicate nectar through each rifted rind,
And ghostly witches'-feather,* on the wind
Comes slowly drifting down.

The delicate down of a peculiar kind of prairie grass common along the Northern shores of the Mexican Gulf.

WATCHING.

The gay cicada sings

Drowsily 'mid the acacia's feathery leaves,
While round her web, the caterpillar weaves
The last, white, silken rings.

October silently

His pleasant work fulfils with busy hands,
While, cheering him, floats o'er the shining sands
The murmur of the Sea.

Dreaming the long night hours

Of white sails coming o'er the tossing deep,
She hath arisen from her strange, glad sleep,
To look for rare, bright flowers,

Cups honied to the brim,

And fruits, and brilliant grasses, and the stems
Of myrtles, with their waxen diadems,
To offer unto him.

"Steady, thou freshening breeze"

Her dark eyes say, as o'er the sparkling main
She gazeth: "Steady, till thou bring again
The ship from distant seas;

"So, ere his golden wine

The setting sun adown the valley pour,
Dear eyes may watch with me beside the door,
The Autumn day decline."

O, birds! O, breezes free!

Ye may not bring her from that rocky coast

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The proud ship stranded-nor the tempest-tost
From underneath the Sea!

But, when she wearily

Shall pray for comfort, of that country tell
Where all the lost are crowned with asphodel,
And "there is no more Sea !"

LADIES HOME, GEORGIA.

My Soldier Boy.

BY HON. W. D. PORTER, CHARLESTON, S. CAROLINA.

"We have outposts or videttes outside of the line of pickets. The instructions are, to stand on duty two hours at a time, perfectly still -without moving hand or foot, and in these cold, bitter nights we get almost frozen."-Extract of a letter from a boy in the Army of Virginia, to his mother, dated "Road near Derbytown."

THE winter night is dark and chill,
The winter rains the trenches fill;
Oh! art thou on the outposts still,
My soldier boy?

Thy mother's heart is sick with fear,
The moaning winds sound sad and drear,
The foeman lurks in ambush near,
My soldier boy.

One treach'rous shot may lay thee low!
My stricken heart with such a blow,
No rest nor peace again would know,
My soldier boy.

LEE TO THE REAR

Thy tender years and soft brown eyes
Ill-suited seem to such emprise,

But in thy soul the manhood lies,
My soldier boy.

I think by day and dream at night,—
I start at tidings of the fight,

And learn thee safe—with such delight,
My soldier boy.

Cheerful and bright, thou dost essay
To chase my every tear away,
And turn the night into the day,
My soldier boy.

In thee I gave what most I love;
For thy return, thou weary dove,
I lift my fervent prayers above,
My soldier boy.

Temper the wind to my dear child,
Oh! God-and curb the winter wild,
And keep in thy embraces mild,
My soldier boy.

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Lee to the Bear.

BY JOHN R. THOMPSON.

DAWN of a pleasant morning in May,

Broke through the wilderness cool and grey,

While perched in the tallest tree-tops, the birds

Were carolling Mendelssohn's "Songs without words."

Far from the haunts of men remote,
The brook brawled on with a liquid note,
Ana Nature, all tranquil and lovely, wore
The smile of the spring, as in Eden of yore.

Little by little as daylight increased,

And deepened the roseate flush in the East-
Little by little did morning reveal

Two long glittering lines of steel;

Where two hundred thousand bayonets gleam,
Tipped with the light of the earliest beam,
And the faces are sullen and grim to see,
In the hostile armies of Grant and Lee.

All of a sudden, ere rose the sun,
Pealed on the silence the opening gun―
A little white puff of smoke there came,
And anon the valley was wreathed in flame.

Down on the left of the rebel lines,

Where a breastwork stands in a copse of pines,
Before the rebels their ranks can form,
The Yankees have carried the place by storm.

Stars and Stripes on the salient wave,
Where many a hero has found a grave,

And the gallant Confederates strive in vain

The ground they have drenched with their blood to regain!

Yet louder the thunder of battle roared-
Yet a deadlier fire cn the columns poured-
Slaughter infernal rode with despair,

Furies twain, through the murky air.