Which veiled his eye and ear,
The grandsire raised his palsied hand
And feebly strove to hear.

And when I read the story, how
Amid the flying balls

And scaled the shattered walls,

The matron and the young wife stood Too terrified for tears,

While flamed the old man's cheek

with red

It had not known for years.

But when I read, that as the flag
In triumph o'er him flew,
How twenty bullets hewed his breast
And cleaved it through and
through,-

The mother heaved a short, deep groan,

And sunk into her chair;
The wife fell on the matron's breast,
And swooned in her despair.

And like a wounded, dying stag,
Lodged in some old retreat,
That hears the still approaching
hounds

And staggers to his feet,

The Veteran struggled from his chair
And raised himself upright,-
His eye a moment kindled with
Its long-forgotten light;-

Lo, the example for our guidance given,

In sacred light our duty stands revealed!

For ONE there was, who, in His great love, even

Noted the smallest lilies of the field,

And, blessing children, said, "Of such is heaven!"

His "Suffer them to come," stands unrepealed!

O ye whose hearts, amid the worldly noises,

No cares can harden, and no self benumb,

Whose ears are open to these orphan voices,

Whose answering soul no avarice makes dumb,

The great RECORDER o'er your names rejoices,

For ye have truly suffered them to come!

THE CELESTIAL ARMY.

I STOOD by the open casement

And looked upon the night, And saw the westward-going stars Pass slowly out of sight.

Slowly the bright procession

Went down the gleaming arch, And my soul discerned the music Of their long triumphal march;

Till the great celestial army,

Stretching far beyond the poles, Became the eternal symbol

Of the mighty march of souls.

Onward, forever onward,

Red Mars led down his clan ; And the Moon, like a mailéd maiden, Was riding in the van.

And some were bright in beauty,

And some were faint and small, But these might be in their great height

The noblest of them all.

It hung, then sank, as with a sigh; And there the crescent moon went by, An empty sickle down the sky.

To soothe his pain, Sleep's tender palm

Laid on his brow its touch of balm; His brain received the slumb'rous calm;

And soon that angel without name, Her robe a dream, her face the same, The giver of sweet visions, came.

She touched his eyes; no longer sealed,

They saw a troop of reapers wield Their swift blades in a ripened field. At each thrust of their snowy sleeves A thrill ran through the future sheaves,

Rustling like rain on forest leaves.

They were not brawny men who bowed,

With harvest-voices rough and loud,
But spirits, moving as a cloud.
Like little lightnings in their hold,
The silver sickles manifold
Slid musically through the gold.

Oh, bid the morning stars combine
To match the chorus clear and fine
That rippled lightly down the line;
A cadence of celestial rhyme,
The language of that cloudless clime,
To which their shining hands kept
time!

Behind them lay the gleaming rows, Like those long clouds the sunset shows

On amber meadows of repose ;
But, like a wind, the binders bright
Soon followed in their mirthful might,
And swept them into sheaves of light.

Doubling the splendor of the plain,
There rolled the great celestial wain,
To gather in the fallen grain.
Its frame was built of golden bars;
Its glowing wheels were lit with stars;
The royal Harvest's car of cars.

The snowy yoke, that drew the load,
On gleaming hoofs of silver trode;
And music was its only goad.