Who battled madly brave,
Beneath a stranger-soil to share
A shallow, crowded grave.

Light up thy home, young mother!
Then gaze in pride and joy
Upon those fair and gentle girls,
That eagle-eyed young boy;
And clasp thy darling little one
Yet closer to thy breast,

And be thy kisses on its lips

In yearning love impressed.

In yon beleaguered city

Were homes as sweet as thine;
There trembling mothers felt loved arms
In fear around them twine;

The lad with brow of olive hue,
The babe like lily fair,

The maiden with her midnight eyes
And wealth of raven hair.

The booming shot, the murderous shell,
Crashed through the crumbling walls,

And filled with agony and death

Those sacred household halls;

Then bleeding, crushed, and blackened, lay
The sister by the brother,

And the torn infant gasped and writhed
On the bosom of the mother!

Oh sisters, if you have no tears
For fearful scenes like these;

If the banners of the victors veil
The victim's agonies;

If ye lose the babe's and mother's cry
In the noisy roll of drums;

If your hearts with martial pride throb high-
Light up, light up your homes!

PAUL H. HAYNE.

[A poet of one of the Southern States of the Union. He published in 1860 a volume named Avolio, a Legend of the Island of Cos, with Poems Lyrical, Miscellaneous, and Dramatic].

SONNET.

An hour agone, and prostrate Nature lay

Like some sore-smitten creature nigh to death, With feverish parched lips, with labouring breath, And languid eyeballs darkening to the day. A burning Noontide ruled with merciless sway Earth, wave, and air; the ghastly-stretching heath, The sullen trees, the fainting flowers beneath, Drooped hopeless, shrivelling in the torrid ray ;When, like a sudden, cheerful trumpet blown

Far off by rescuing spirits, rose the wind Urging great hosts of clouds; the thunder's tone Breaks into wrath; the rainy cataracts fall.

But, pausing soon, behold Creation shrined In a new birth,-God's Covenant clasping all!

ALICE BRADLEY NEAL.

MIDNIGHT.

I HAD been tossing through the restless night,—
Sleep banished from my pillow, and my brain
Weary with sense of dull and stifling pain,-
Yearning and praying for the blessed light.
My lips moaned thy dear name, beloved one;
Yet I had seen thee lying still and cold,
Thy form bound only by the shroud's pure fold,
For life with all its suffering was done.

Then agony of loneliness o'ercame

My widowed heart. Night would fit emblem seem
For the evanishing of that bright dream.

The heavens were dark my life henceforth the same.
No hope its pulse within my breast was dead.
No light the clouds hung heavily o'erhead.

JOHN JAMES PIATT.

[Author of two volumes of poems, published in 1872-Western Windows &c., and Landmarks &c. Our extracts are all taken from the former of these two volumes, which shows the writer to more advantage than the latter].

THE MOWER IN OHIO.
JUNE 1864.

THE bees in the clover are making honey, and I am making my hay:

The air is fresh, I seem to draw a young man's breath

to-day.

The bees and I are alone in the grass: the air is so very still

I hear the dam, so loud, that shines beyond the sullen mill. Yes, the air is so still that I hear almost the sounds I cannot hear

That, when no other sound is plain, ring in my empty ear: The chime of striking scythes, the fall of the heavy swathes they sweep—

They ring about me, resting, when I waver half asleep. So still I am not sure if a cloud, low down, unseen there be,

Or if something brings a rumour home of the cannon so far from me :

Far away in Virginia, where Joseph and Grant, I know, Will tell them what I meant when first I had my mow

ers go!

Joseph he is my eldest one, the only boy of my three. Whose shadow can darken my door again, and lighten my heart for me.

Joseph he is my eldest-how his scythe was striking ahead!

William was better at shorter heats, but Jo in the long

run led.

William he was my youngest; John, between them, I somehow see,

When my eyes are shut, with a little board at his head in Tennessee.

But William came home one morning early, from Gettysburg, last July

(The mowing was over already, although the only mower was I):

William, my captain, came home for good to his mother; and I'll be bound

We were proud and cried to see the flag that wrapped his coffin around;

For a company from the town came up ten miles with music and gun:

It seemed his country claimed him then-as well as his mother-her son.

But Joseph is yonder with Grant to-day, a thousand miles or near;

And only the bees are abroad at work with me in the clover here.

Was it a murmur of thunder I heard that hummed again in the air?

Yet, may-be, the cannon are sounding now their "Onward to Richmond" there.

But under the beech by the orchard, at noon, I sat an hour, it would seem

It may be I slept a minute, too, or wavered into a dream.

For I saw my boys, across the field, by the flashes as they went,

Tramping a steady tramp as of old with the strength in their arms unspent ;

Tramping a steady tramp, they moved like soldiers that

march to the beat

Of music that seems, a part of themselves, to rise and fall with their feet.

Tramping a steady tramp, they came with flashes of silver that shone,

Every step, from their scythes that rang as if they needed the stone

(The field is wide and heavy with grass)—and, coming toward me they beamed

With a shine of light in their faces at once, and—surely I must have dreamed!

For I sat alone in the clover-field, the bees were work ing ahead.

There were three in my vision-remember, old man : and what if Joseph were dead!

But I hope that he and Grant (the flag above them both, to boot)

Will go into Richmond together, no matter which is ahead or afoot!

Meantime alone at the mowing here- an old man somewhat grey

I must stay at home as long as I can, making myself the hay.

And so another round-the quail in the orchard whistles blithe

But first I'll drink at the spring below, and whet again my scythe.