On the hill-side yonder.
Buoyant in her brave young love,
Flushed with patriot honor,
No misgiving, no fond fear
Flings its shade upon her.
Though no mortal soul can know
Half the love she bears him,
Proudly, for her country's sake,
From her heart she spares him.

God be thanked! she does not dream
That her gallant lover
Will be in a soldier's grave

When the war is over!

IV.

'Midst the turmoil and the strife Of the war-tides rushing Every heart its separate woe

In its depths is crushing.

Who has time for tears, when blood All the land is steeping?

In our poverty we grudge

Even the waste of weeping! But when quiet comes again,

And the bands, long broken, Gather round the hearth, and breathe Names now seldom spokenThen we'll miss the precious links, Mourn the empty places,

Read the hopeless "Nevermore-"

In each other's faces!

Oh! what aching, anguished hearts

O'er lone graves will hover,

CHRISTMAS, 1863

With a new, fresh sense of pain
When the war is over!

V.

Stern endurance, bitterer still,
Sharp with self-denial,
Fraught with loftier sacrifice,
Fuller far of trial-

Strews our flinty path of thorns,
Marks our bloody story—
Fits us for the victor's palm,
Weaves our robes of glory!
Shall we faint with God above,
And His strong arm under,
And the cold world gazing on,
In a maze of wonder?

No! with more resistless march,
More resolved endeavor,
Press we onward-struggle still,
Fight and win forever!

Holy peace will heal all ills,

Joy all losses cover,

Raptures rend our Southern skies,
When the war is over.

Christmas.

1863.

BY HENRY TIMROD.

How grace this hallowed day?

Shall happy bells from yonder ancient spire,
Send their glad greetings to each Christmas fire
Round which the children play?

395

Alas for many a morn,

That tongueless* tower hath cleaved the Sabbath air, Mute obelisk of ice, aglare

Beneath the Arctic moon.

Shame to the foes that drown

Our psalms of worship with their impious drum!
The sweetest chimes in all the land lie dumb
In some far rustic town.

There let us think they keep

Of the dead yules, which here beside the sea
They've ushered in with old world English glee,
Some echoes in their sleep.

How shall we grace the day?

With feast and song and dance, and antique sports,
And shouts of happy children in the courts,
And tales of ghost and fay?

Is there indeed a door

Where the old pastimes, with their cheerful noise,
And all the merry round of Christmas joys,
Could enter as of yore?

Would not some pallid face

Look in upon the banquet, calling up
Dread shapes of battle in the wassail cup,
And trouble all the place?

*St. Michael's, the oldest church in the United States. The chime of bells was imported before the Revolution of 1776.

CHRISTMAS, 1863.

How could we bear the mirth,

While some loved reveller of a year ago

Keeps his mute Christmas now, beneath the snow
In cold Virginia earth?

How shall ye grace the day?

Ah! let the thought that on this holy morn
The Prince of Peace, the Prince of Peace was born,
Employ us while we pray.

Pray for the peace, which long

Hath left this tortured land, and haply now
Holds its white court on some far mountain's brow
There, hardly safe from wrong.

Let every sacred fane

Call its sad votaries to the shrine of God,
And with the cloister and the tented sod
Join in the solemn strain!

With pomp of Roman form,

With the grave ritual brought from England shore;
And with the simple faith which asks no more
Than that the heart be warm.

He, who till time shall cease

Shall watch that earth where once not all in vain
He died to give us peace, will not disdain
A prayer, whose theme is peace.

Perhaps, ere yet the Spring

Hath died unto the Summer-over all

The land, the peace of His vast love shall fall
Like some protecting wing.

397

Oh! ponder what it means!

Oh! turn the rapturous thought in every way,
Oh! give the vision and the fancy play,
And shape the coming scene.

Peace in the quiet dells,

Made rankly fertile by the blood of men,
Peace in the wood and in the lonely glen,
Peace in the peopled vale:

Peace in the crowded town,

Peace in the thousand fields of waving grain,
Peace in the highway and the flowery lane—
Peace on the wind-swept down.

Peace on the farthest scas,

Peace in our sheltered bays and ample streams,
Peace where'er our starry garland gleams,
And peace in every breeze.

Peace on the whirring marts,

Peace where the scholar thinks, the hunter roams Peace! God of peace! peace, peace in all our homes, And peace in all our hearts!

Holly and Cypress.

BY MRS. FANNY DOWNING.

MERRY old Christmas has come again,
With plenty of pleasure, naught of pain;
Joy and mistletoe round his head,

And shining holly with berries red.