The gray morn
Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke
Before the icy wind slow rolls away,

And the bright beams of frosty morning dance
Along the spangling snow. There tracks of blood
Even to the forest's depth, and scattered arms,
And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments

War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade,
And to those royal murderers whose mean thrones
Are bought by crimes of treachery and gore,
The bread they eat, the staff on which they lean.
Guards, garbed in blood-red livery, surround
Their palaces, participate the crimes

Black ashes note where their proud city stood.
Within yon forest is a gloomy glen-

Each tree which guards its darkness from the day
Waves o'er a warrior's tomb.

Secure the crown, which all the curses reach That famine, frenzy, woe and penury breathe These are the hired bravos who defend

The tyrant's throne.

-Percy Byssh

Happy he whose inward ear
Angel comfortings can hear,

O'er the rabble's laughter;
And, while hatred's fagots burn,
Glimpses through the smoke discern
Of the good hereafter.

Knowing this-that never yet
Share of truth was vainly set

In the world's wide fallow;
After hands shall sow the seed,
After hands from hill and mead
Reap the harvests yellow.

Thus, with somewhat of the seer,
Must the moral pioneer

From the future borrow

Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,

And, on midnight's sky of rain,

Paint the goiden morrow!

-John Greenleaf Whittier.

Ο

UR bugles sang truce-for the night-cloud had lower'd,

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,

By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain, At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again. Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array, Far, far I had roam'd on a desolate track; 'Twas Autumn-and sunshine arose on the way To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant field traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;

I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart. Stay, stay with us-rest, thou art weary and worn; And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay: But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, And the voice of my dreaming ear melted away. -Thomas Campbell.

ILD blew the gale in Gibraltar one night,

WILD

As a soldier lay stretched in his cell;

And anon, 'mid the darkness, the moon's silver light
On his countenance dreamily fell.

Naught could she reveal, but a man true as steel,
That oft for his country had bled;

And the glance of his eye might the grim king defy,
For despair, fear, and trembling had fled.

But in rage he had struck a well-merited blow
At a tyrant who held him in scorn;
And his fate soon was sealed, for alas! honest Joe
Was to die on the following morn.

Oh! sad was the thought to a man that had fought
'Mid the ranks of the gallant and brave-
To be shot through the breast at a coward's behest,
And laid low in a criminal's grave!