And her lands in desolation laid, beneath an Autumn

sun;

With the signal shout "To action !"-like the boom of signal guns,

She has roused the iron mettle of her strong and stal

wart sons.

May her daughters aid that effort to rebuild and to re

store,

Working on for Southern freedom as they never worked

before!

May Georgia as a laggard never once be stigmatized, And her PEOPLE, PRESS, or PULPIT, never more be Shermanized!

Song of the Snow.

BY MRS. MARGARET J. PRESTON.

HALT!-the march is over!
Day is almost done;

Loose the cumbrous knapsack,

Drop the heavy gun:
Chilled and wet and weary,

Wander to and fro,
Seeking wood to kindle
Fires amid the snow.

Round the bright blaze gather,

Heed not sleet nor cold,

Ye are Spartan soldiers,

Stout and brave and bold: Never Xerxian army

Yet subdued a foe,

Who but asked a blanket
On a bed of snow.

Shivering midst the darkness
Christian men are found,
There devoutly kneeling ·
On the frozen ground,—
Pleading for their country
In its hour of woe,—
For its soldiers marching
Shoeless through the snow.

Lost in heavy slumbers,

Free from toil and strife; Dreaming of their dear ones,Home and child and wife; Faultless they are lying

While the fires burn low,

Lying in their blankets,

Midst December's snow.

FROM BEECHENBROOK.

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 carly 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.

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

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 Derbylown."

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.