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"NEWS FROM THE WAR."

"NEWS FROM THE WAR."

ANONYMOUS.

WO women sit at a farm-house door,

TW

Busily reading the news,

While softly around them fair twilight sheds
Her tender shadows and dews.

Peace smiles in the cloudless heaven above;
Peace rests on the landscape fair;
And peace, like a holy spirit of love,
Broods in the balmy air.

But not one ray of peace illumes
Those sad and wistful eyes,
Which search that printed record o'er
As mariners search the skies.

Look on their faces: one like a rose
Fresh with the beauty of May;
The other, pale as a waning moon
Seen through thin clouds of gray.

Yet, though one is young and the other old,
With the same soft glory they shine;

For they're tinted with tenderest light and shades
By Love, the artist divine.

"NEWS FROM THE WAR."

Now, fast as a radiant vision, fades

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The glow of the western skies;

Yet the readers read on, — unmindful of all
Save the paper before their eyes.

Nothing to them the charms of that hour,
The magic of meadow and hill;

For spirits bowed down with a weight of care, Are blind to the beautiful still.

Deeper the shadows of twilight fall;
More hushed grows the dewy air,
When suddenly breaks on that holy calm
A quick, wild cry of despair.

The younger glances have found it first,
That record so sad and so brief;
"Mortally wounded!". two dread words -
Winged arrows of pain and grief.

"Mortally wounded!"— look again ;

Alas! it is all too true;

Not the brave alone, but the fond and fair
Are mortally wounded, too.

He, on the battle-field far away;
They, in their quiet home, -

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"NEWS FROM THE WAR."

The wife and the mother, who never more
Shall see their loved hero come.

The grass will grow where the warrior fell,
And sweet wild flowers may bloom

On the very turf once blackened and burned
By the fearful fires of doom.

But the smiling summers, that come and go,
Can never, never heal

The bleeding bosoms which felt to-day
Something sharper than steel.

"Mortally wounded!" oh, dread War!

Many a victim is thine,

Save those who hear your terrible voice
Go thundering along the line!

If we give proud names and echoing hymns,
And build up monuments grand
To the gallant spirits who suffer and fall
In defence of their native land;

Let us yield a tenderer tribute still,
Sad tears and a pitying sigh,

To the uncrowned martyrs who silently sink, And die when their heroes die.

WITH

MARCH!

BY BAYARD TAYLOR.

ITH rushing winds and gloomy skies The dark and stubborn Winter dies; Far-off, unseen, Spring faintly cries, Bidding her earliest child arise:

March!

By streams still held in icy snare,
On Southern hill-sides, melting bare,
O'er fields that motley colors wear,
That summons fills the changeful air:
March!

What though conflicting seasons make
Thy days their field, they woo or shake
The sleeping lids of Life awake,

And Hope is stronger for thy sake:

March!

Then from thy mountains, ribbed with snow,

Once more thy rousing bugle blow,

And East and West, and to and fro,
Proclaim thy coming to the foe:

March!

Say to the picket, chilled and numb,
Say to the camp's impatient hum,
Say to the trumpet and the drum:
Lift up your hearts, I come, I come !

March!

Cry to the waiting hosts that stray
On sandy sea-sides far away,

By marshy isle and gleaming bay,

Where Southern March is Northern May:

March!

Announce thyself with welcome noise,

Where Glory's victor-eagles poise

Above the proud, heroic boys

Of Iowa and Illinois :

March!

Then down the long Potomac's line
Shout like a storm on hills of pine,
Till ramrods ring and bayonets shine,
"Advance! the Chieftain's call is mine:
"MARCH!"