THE SOLDIER'S DEATHBED.

Ask'st thou of mine ?-In solemn peace 'tis lying,
Far o'er the deserts and the tombs away;
'Tis where I, too, am loved with love undying,
And fond hearts wait my step-But where are they?
Ask where the earth's departed have their dwelling;
Ask of the clouds, the stars, the trackless air!
I know it not, yet trust the whisper, telling
My lonely heart, that love unchanged is there.

And what is home, and where, but with the loving?
Happy thou art, that so canst gaze on thine!
My spirit feels but, in its weary roving,
That with the dead, where'er they be, is mine
Go to thy home, rejoicing son and brother!
Bear in fresh gladness to the household scene!
For me, too, watch the sister and the mother,
I well believe--but dark seas roll between.

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THE SOLDIER'S DEATHBED.

"Wie herrlich die Sonne dort untergeht! da ich noch ein Bube war-war's mein Lieblingsgedanke, wie sie zu leben, wie sie zu sterben!"-Die Rauber.

Like thee to die, thou sun!-My boyhood's dream

Was this; and now my spirit, with thy beam,

Ebbs from a field of victory!-yet the hour
Bears back upon me, with a torrent's power,
Nature's deep longings:-Oh! for some kind eye,
Wherein to meet love's fervent farewell gaze;
Some breast to pillow life's last agony,
Some voice, to speak of hope and brighter days,
Beyond the pass of shadows!-But I go,

I that have been so loved, go hence alone;

And ye, now gathering round my own hearth's glow,
Sweet friends! it may be that a softer tone,
Even in this moment, with your laughing glee,
Mingles its cadence while you speak of me
Ofne, your soldier, 'midst the mountains lying,
On the red banner of his battles dying,
Far, tar away!-and oh! your parting prayer-
Will not his name be fondly murmur'd there?
It will!-A blessing on that holy hearth!
Though clouds are darkening to o'ercast its mirth.
Mother! I may not hear thy voice again;
Sisters! ye watch to greet my step in vain ;
Young brother, fare thee well!-on each dear head
Blessing and love a thousandfold be shed,

My soul's last earthly breathings!-May your home
Smile for you ever!-May no winter come,

No world, between your hearts! May ev'n your tears,
For my sake, full of long-remember'd years,"
Quicken the true affections that entwine

Your lives in one bright bond!-I may not sleep
Amidst our fathers, where those tears might shine
Over my slumbers; yet your love will keep
My memory living in the ancestral halls,

Where shame hath never trod :-the dark night falls,
And I depart.-The brave are gone to rest,
The brothers of my combats, on the breast

Of the red field they reap'd:-their work is done-
Thou, too, art set!-farewell, farewell, thou sun!
The last lone watcher of the bloody sod,

Offers a trusting spirit up to God.

That they whom death has hidden from our sight
Are worthiest of the mind's regard; with them
The future cannot contradict the past-
Mortality's last exercise and proof
Is undergone."

Wordsworth.

"The love where death has set his seal,

Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow."-Byron.

I CALL thee bless'd !-though now the voice be fled,
Which, to thy soul, brought dayspring with its tone,
And o'er the gentle eyes though dust be spread,
Eyes that ne'er look'd on thine but light was thrown
Far through thy breast:

And though the music of thy life be broken,
Or changed in every chord, since he is gone,
Feeling all this, even yet, by many a token,
O thou, the deeply, but the brightly lone!
I call thee bless'd!

For in thy heart there is a holy spot,
As 'mid the waste an Isle of fount and palm,
For ever green!—the world's breath enters not,
The passion-tempests may not break its calm;'
'Tis thine, all thine!

Thither, in trust unbaffled, may'st thou turn
From bitter words, cold greetings, heartless eyes,
Quenching thy soul's thirst at the hidden urn
That fill'd with waters of sweet memory, lies
In its own shrine.

THE LAND OF DREAMS

Thou hast thy home!-there is no power in change
To reach that temple of the past; no sway;
In all time brings of sudden, dark, or strange,
To sweep the still transparent peace away
From its hush'd air!

And oh! that glorious image of the dead!
Sole thing whereon a deathless love may rest,
And in deep faith and dreamy worship shed
Its high gifts fearlessly!-I call thee bless'd,
If only there.

Bless'd, for the beautiful within thee dwelling
Never to fade!-a refuge from distrust,
A spring of purer life, still freshly welling,
To clothe the barrenness of earthly dust
With flowers divine.

And thou hast been beloved!-it is no dream,
No false mirage for thee, the fervent love,
The rainbow still unreach'd, the ideal gleam,
That ever seems before, beyond, above,

Far off to shine.

But thou, from all the daughters of the earth
Singled and mark'd, hast known its home and place;
And the high memory of its holy worth,

To this our life a glory and a grace

For thee hath given.

And art thou not still fondly, truly loved?
Thou art!-the love his spirit bore away,
Was not for death!-a treasure but removed,
A bright bird parted for a clearer day,-

Thine still in Heaven!

THE LAND OF DREAMS.

"And dreams, in their development, have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They make us what we were not-what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by."

O SPIRIT-LAND! thou land of dreams!
A world thou art of mysterious gleams,
Of startling voices, and sounds at strife,
A world of the dead in the hues of life.
Like a wizard's magic glass thou art,
When the wavy shadows float by, and part:
Visions of aspects, now loved, now strange,
Glimmering and mingling in ceaseless change.
VOL. II.-20

Byron

Thou art like a city of the past,

With its gorgeous halls into fragments cast,
Amidst whose ruins there glide and play
Familiar forms of the world's to-day.

Thou art like the depths where the seas have birth
Rich with the wealth that is lost from earth,-
All the sere flowers of our days gone by,
And the buried gems in thy bosom lie.
Yes! thou art like those dim sea-caves,
A realm of treasures, a realm of graves!

And the shapes through thy mysteries that come and go,
Are of beauty and terror, of power and woe.

But for me, O thou picture-land of sleep!
Thou art all one world of affections deep,-
And wrung from my heart is each flushing dye,
That sweeps o'er thy chambers of imagery.
And thy bowers are fair-even as Eden fair:
All the beloved of my soul are there!
The forms my spirit most pines to see,
The eyes, whose love hath been life to me:

They are there-and each blessed voice I hear,
Kindly, and joyous, and silvery clear;
But under-tones are in each, that say,-
"It is but a dream; it will melt away

I walk with sweet friends in the sunset's glow;

I listen to music of long ago;

But one thought, like an omen, breathes faint through the "It is but a dream; it will melt away!"

I sit by the hearth of my early days;

All the home-faces are met by the blaze,

And the eyes of the mother shine soft, yet say, "It is but a dream; it will melt away!

[lay,

And away, like a flower's passing breath, 'tis gone,
And I wake more sadly, more deeply lone!
Oh! a haunted heart is a weight to bear,-

Bright faces, kind voices! where are ye, where ?

Shadow not forth, O thou land of dreams,
The past, as it fled by my own blue streams!
Make not my spirit within me burn

For the scenes and the hours that may ne'er return!

Call out from the future thy visions bright.

From the world o'er the grave, take thy solemn light, And oh! with the loved, whom no more I see,

Show me my home, as it yet may be !

As it yet may be in some purer sphere,
No cloud, no parting, no sleepless fear;

So my soul may bear on through the long, long day
Till I go where the beautiful melts not away

WOMAN ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE.

WOMAN ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE.

"Where hath not woman stood,

Strong in affection's might? a reed, upborne
By an o'ermastering current ?"

GENTLE and lovely form,
What didst thou here,
When the fierce battle-storm
Bore down the spear?

Banner and shiver'd crest,
Beside thee strown,
Tell, that amidst the best,
Thy work was done!
Yet strangely, sadly fair
O'er the wild scene,
Gleams through its golden hair,

That brow serene.

Low lies the stately head,-
Earth-bound the free:
How gave those haughty dead
A place to thee?

Slumberer! thine early bier
Friends should have crown'd,
Many a flower and tear
Shedding around.

Soft voices, clear and young,
Mingling their swell,

Should o'er thy dust have sung

Earth's last farewell.

Sisters, above the grave

Of thy repose,

Should have bid violets wave

With the white rose.

Now must the trumpet's note,

Savage and shrill,

For requiem o'er thee float.

Thou fair and still!

And the swift charger sweep

In full career,

Trampling thy place of sleep,-
Why camest thou here?

Why?-ask the true heart why
Woman hath been,
Ever, where brave men die,
Unshrinking seen?

Unto this harvest ground

Proud reapers came,―

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