We knew it had hardly a value in gold,
Yet as gold our soldiers received it,
It gazed in our eyes with a promise to pay,
And each patriot soldier believed it.

But our boys thought little of price or pay, Or of bills that were over due;

We knew if it brought us bread to-day,

It was the best our poor country could do.

Keep it it tells our history over,

From the birth of its dream to the last; Modest, and born of the angel of Hope, Like the hope of success it has passed.

Ashes of Glory.

BY A. J. REQUIER.

FOLD up the gorgeous, silken sun,
By bleeding martyrs blest,
And keep 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 arched his brow
From Fate's empyreal palm:

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

ASHES OF GLORY.

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;

Nor all that antique fables feign,
And Orient streams 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 might,
And be thy blazoned scroll
A warrior's banner takes its flight
To greet the warrior's soul!

METROPOLITAN RECORD.

415

The Confederate Flag.

BY H. L. FLASH.

FOUR stormy years we saw it gleam,
A people's hope and then refurled,
Even while its glory was the theme
Of half the world.

The beacon that, with streaming ray,
Dazzled a struggling nation's sight,
Seeming a pillar of cloud by day,
Of fire by night.

They jeer, who trembled as it hung,
Comet-like, blazoning the sky;
And heroes, such as Homer sung,
Followed it-to die.

It fell-but stainless at it rose,

Martyred like Stephen, in the strife; Passing, like him, girdled with foes, From death to life.

Fame's trophy, sanctified by tears,
Planted forever at her portal;

Folded, true-what then? four short years
Made it immortal.

THE BLESSED HAND.

417

The Blessed Hand.

Respectfully Dedicated to the Ladies of the Southern Relief Fair, Baltimore.

BY S. TEACKLE WALLIS.

There is a legend of an English monk who died at the monastery of Aremburg, where he had gone and illuminated many books, hoping to be rewarded in Heaven. Long after his death his tomb was opened, and nothing could be seen of his remains but the right hand with which he had done his pious work, and which had been miraculously preserved from decay.

FOR you and me who love the light
Of God's unclouded day,

It were indeed a dreary lot,

To shut ourselves away

From every glad and sunny thing,

And pleasant sight and sound,

And pass from out a silent cell,
Into the silent ground.

Not so the good monk Anselm, thought,
For, in his cloister's shade,
The cheerful faith that lit his heart

Its own sweet sunshine made;
And in its glow he prayed and wrote

From matin-song till even,

And trusted in the Book of Life

To read his name in Heaven.

What holy books his gentle art
Filled full of saintly lore!
What pages brightened by his hand
The splendid missals bore!

What blossoms almost fragrant-twined Around each blessed name,

And how his Saviour's cross and crown Shone out from cloud of flame!

But unto clerk as unto clown,
One summons comes alway,
And Brother Anselm heard the call,
At vesper chime, one day.
His busy pen was in his hand,
His parchment by his side-
He bent him o'er the half-writ prayer,
Kissed Jesus' name, and died!

They laid him where a window's blaze
Flashed o'er the graven stone,
And seemed to touch his simple name,
With pencil like his own;
And there he slept and one by one,
His brothers died, the while,
And trooping years went by, and trod
His name from off the aisle.

And lifting up the pavement, then,
An Abbot's couch to spread,
They let the jewelled sunlight in
Where once lay Anselm's head.
No crumbling bone was there, no trace
Of human dust that told,
But all alone, a warm right hand
Lay, fresh upon the mould.

It was not stiff as dead men's are,
But, with a tender clasp,