Lo! the silvered cross is high.
Borne aloft to Southern sky!
Holy Mary!

Gloria! for those who fell

On their spotless shields, 'tis well!
Sigh thou with us-stricken band,
Miserere, motherland!

Miserere!

Holy Mary!

Giant sorrows drag their length,
Noiseless in their deadly strength;
I have wept, ah, let me weep!
Rock my tearless heart to sleep,
Holy Mary!

Guide me to thy sweet relief.
By our sister-hood of grief,
Bear the Father every cry,
Woman angel! sigh for sigh!
Miserere!

LADIES' HOME.

Missing.

IN the cool sweet hush of a wooded nook,

Where the May-buds sprinkle the green old mound, And the winds and the birds and the limped brook, Murmur their dreams with a drowsy sound;

Who lies so still in the plushy moss,

With his pale cheek pressed on a breezy pillow,

Couched where the lights and the shadows cross
Thro' the flickering fringe of the billow,
Who lies, alas!

So still, so chill, in the whispering grass?

A soldier clad in the Zouave dress,

A bright-haired man, with his lips apart,-
One hand thrown up o'er his frank, dead face
And the other clutching his pulseless heart,
Lies there in the shadows cool and dim,

His musket swept by a trailing bough
With a careless grace in his quiet limbs,
And a wound in his manly brow;
A wound, alas!

Whence the warm blood drips in the quiet grass.

And the violets peer from their dusky beds, With a tearful dew in their great, pure eyes. And the lilies quiver their shining heads,

Their pale lips full or sad surprise ; And the lizard darts thro' the glistening fern

And the squirrel rustles the branches hoary— Strange birds fly out with a cry, to bathe Their wings in the sunset glory.

While the shadows pass O'er the quiet face and the dewy grass.

God pity the bride who waits at home.

With her lily cheeks and her violet eyes, Dreaming-the sweet old dream of love,

While her lover is walking in Paradise; God strengthen her heart as the days go by And the long drear nights of her vigil follow,

Nor bird nor moon, nor whispering wind
May breathe the tale of the hollow;
Alas! alas!

The secret is safe in the woodland grass.

Dead.

BY C. C.

DEAD! Well, I have written the word, and I gaze
On it still, and again,

Till the four simple letters turn up in a blaze
And sear deep in my brain.

Ah! proudly my first-born sprang up to the fight,
And I gave him his sword,

And I bade him watch well that his name was as bright,
And as stainless his word.

Was that time for weeping? I conquered a groan
For a cheerful good-bye;

God knows how the stillness of night heard me moan,
How his car met my cry.

And then came the praises. He, first everywhere,
He, my blessing! my pride!

It was mine, all his mother's, the guerdon to share;
In my joy, fear allied.

One battle another-and spared to me still;
God! Thy mercy is great!

But one more day's conflict is yet to fulfill-
I ponder, and wait.

Not too long! not too long! oh! no, never too long,
For my sentence is read,

And, sitting here still, with my prayer to be strong,
They bring me my dead.

Dead! I summon ye mothers who suffer as I,
(For we wail not alone)

To stand by this bier-side, and answer my cry,
If this, this be my son.

My hero laid here, with the shouts going forth
For a victory won?

Ah! patriots I know what a victory's worth,
When it leaves me forlorn.

These temples cut through, with a round cruel hole,
Under the blood-dabbled hair--

These dear lips, this breast that my weak arms enfold,
Echo not my despair.

Well, the world goes by tamely-men smile as they smiled,

And the black hours roll past

Over me in my grief-me, bereft of my child,-
Waiting on for the last!

Life's happiness finished, I finish its fear;

Oh! my bright angel one!

For thee higher glory-for me, to watch here
By the sepulchre stone!

RICHMOND EXAMINER.

*

An Unknown Hero.*

BY WM. GORDON MC CABE, MARYLAND.

SWEET Malvern Hill is wreathed in flame,
From scrried ranks the steel is gleaming;
Our legions march to death and fame,
Their battle flags right wildly streaming.
Each hero bares his manly breast,

And gallant hearts are fiercely beating;
With steady tramp they line the crest,
O'er which an iron hail is sleeting.

Up loom the bastions grim and large,

Thro' battle smoke that's lowering near them; The little drummers roll "the charge,"

And dying comrades raise to cheer them.

Twice forty guns with deadly aim,

Strike down our lines in tones of thunder;

Yet still they press with eyes aflame,
Till Valor's self looks on in wonder.

But now the human tide rolls back

A ghastly remnant grim and gory—
And countless heroes mark the track
Which led them up to heights of Glory!
But ONE still presses on amain,

Where double-shotted guns are frowning;
Above, amidst the iron rain,

He nobly wins a hero's crowning.

After the battle of Malvern Hill, a soldier was found dead fifty yards in advance of any officer or man-his musket firmly grasped in his rigid fingers,-name unknown,-simply " 2 La." on his cap.