The Hero without a Name.

I LOVED, when a child, to seek the page
Where war's proud tales are grandly told,
And to read of the might of that former age,
In the brave, good days of old;

When men for Virtue and Honor fought

In serried ranks, 'neath their banners bright, By the fairy hands of beauty wrought,

And broidered with "God and Right."

'Twas there I read of Sir Launcelot true,

Whose deeds have been sung in a nobler strain; And of Roderic, the Bold, who his falchion drew, In the cause of his native Spain;

And, in thought, I beheld gay Sidney ride

His white plume dotting the field's expanse;

And Bayard, who came like the swirl of the tide,.

As he struck for the lilies of France.

On the crags of Scotland then I saw,
With his hair of golden hue, Montrose;

And the swarthy Douglas, whose name was law
In the homes of his English foes.

There was Winkelried, in the Swiss-land famed;
And the mountaineers' boast-devoted Tell-
Before whose patriot shaft, well-aimed,
His country's tyrant fell.

'Neath Erin's flag, with its glad sunburst,
Was Emmett, the first in that martyr van,
Whose blood makes sacred the gibbet accursed,
Where they died for the rights of man.

There was Light-Horse Harry, the first in the fray,
There was Marion leading his cavaliers-
And Washington, too, whose grave to-day,
Is the shrine of patriot tears.

These splendid forms were part of the throng
That delighted me, moving in pageant grand,
Through the wastes of time and the fields of song,
From the legends of every land.

But little I hoped myself to see

A spirit akin to these stately men ;

Or dreamed that great hearts, like theirs, could be In a prison's crowded pen.

Yet, I've seen in the wards of the hospital there, A hero, I fancy, as peerless of soul;

A pale-faced boy, whose home is fair,

Where the waters of Cumberland roll.

On his narrow cot, in that narrow room,

Where the music he hears is the sigh and the groan,

He lies through the day's long pain and gloom,
But he never makes a moan!

They hewed him down with their blades of steel, Where the troopers charged from the camp of the

foe;

But he was not killed-although I feel,

It would have been better so;
For my heart within me is very sad,

As I sit and hold his wasted hand,
And hear him tell of the days that were glad,
In our own dear, sunny land.

There are hours, again, in his fever's heat,
When his restless fancies fly to his home:
And he talks of the scythe in the falling wheat,
And the reapers that go and come;
Of his boyish mates, in their frolicsome glee,
In the cedarn glades and the woodlawns dim;
And how he carved there on many a tree,
A name that was dear to him;

Of the sweet wild roses that scatter the light,
Through the open door and the window-pane ;
And October's haze, on the far off height—
And the quiet country lane;

Of the rivulet's plash, and the song of birds,
And the corn rows, standing like men with spears;
Of his mother's tones, and her loving words—
And his cheeks are wet with tears.

And I seem to see her, as autumn leaves

Like shadows fall in the lonely glen,

And the swallows come home to those silent eaves,

Where he shall not come again.

And then I rejoice that she can not see,

How the blight has stained her fairest bloom;

I am glad her footstep will never be

Beside his northern tomb.

And I think of another, who watches too,

When the early stars are bright on the hill, Nor dreams that his heart-so confiding and true

Will soon be forever still.

Ah! many, in vain, to their hopes shall cling,

Through the dreary morn and the mournful eve;

And memory alone shall its solace bring,

To a thousand hearts that grieve.

My comrade will last but a little while;
For I see on every succeeding day,

A fainter flush-but a sweeter smile-
Over his features play.

And he knows that until he is under the sod,
These walls, little better, shall shut him in;
But his soul puts trust in the Lamb of God,
That taketh away all sin!

And somehow I think, when our lives are done,
That this humble hero-without a name-
Will be greater up there, than many a one
Of the high-born men of fame.

And I know I would rather wear to-day,

The crown that is his, with its fadeless bloom, Than Roderic's helm, so golden and gay, Or Sidney's snow-white plume!

O prisoner boy! that I were as near,

As you are now to that "shining shore," Where the waters of life and of love are clear, And weeping shall come no more.

It can not be now; yet, in God's own time,

When He calls his weary ones home to rest, May I join with you in the angel chime

Like you, be a welcome guest!