And the grandsire speaks in a whisper: But we give him to his country, And we give our prayers to Thee." The violets star the meadows, The pink-white blossoms pour. But the grandsire's chair is empty, There's a nameless grave in the battle-field, And a pallid, tearless woman WILLIAM WINTER. OUR CHRISTMAS HYMN. "GOOD-WILL and peace, peace and good-will!" The burden of the Advent song, What time the love-charmed waves grew still The wondering shepherds heard the strain Who watched by night the slumbering fleece, The deep skies echoed the refrain, "Peace and good-will, good-will and peace!" And wise men hailed the promised sign, That hallowed Cana's bridal feast; But what to these are myrrh or gold, And what Arabia's costliest gem, "Peace and good-will, good-will and peace!" Fills with great dread the shuddering coast, And Rachel hath but one reply: "Bring back, bring back my loved and lost!" So down two thousand years of doom And breaking hearts make ceaseless moan, And still the mute appeal to heaven Man answers back with groan for groan. How shall we keep our Christmas-tide, A fearful shade, an awful shape! Make green the faded Autumn leaf? Wild bells that shake the midnight air At every board a vacant chair Fills with quick tears some tender And at our maddest sports appear eye, Those well-loved forms that will not die. We jest, a spectre rises up- And pledge the gallant friend who keeps O happy Yules of buried years! Could ye but come in wonted guise, Sweet as love's earliest kiss appears When looking back through wistful eyes Would seem those chimes whose voices tell His birth-night with melodious burst, Who, sitting by Samaria's well, Quenched the lorn widow's life-long thirst. Ah! yet I trust that all who weep, To loving hearts, while angels sing: JOHN DICKSON BRUNS (Southern). NEW YEAR'S EVE. [Libby Prison, Richmond, Va., December 31, 1863.] "TIS twelve o'clock! Within my prison dreary, Ah! is it so? My fellow-captive sleeping And thou, my country! Wounded, pale, and bleeding, Thy children deaf to a fond mother's pleading, But through the clouds the sun is slowly breaking; Hope from her long, deep sleep is re-awaking: Speed the time, Father! when the bow of peace, Spanning the gulf, shall bid the tempest cease, When foemen, clasping each other by the hand, Shall shout once more, in a united land 66 All's well!" F. A. BARTLESON. ULRIC DAHLGREN. [Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, son of Admiral Dahlgren, U. S. Navy, distinguished himself by his dashing exploits with the Army of the Potomac, while serving on the staffs of Generals Sigel, Hooker, and Meade, and lost a leg at Gettysburg. While still on crutches, he led an expedition to free the Union prisoners in Libby Prison at Richmond, and fell in a midnight ambush, March 2, 1864, at the age of twentytwo years.] A FLASH of light across the night, O lad so true, you yet may rue "Nay, tempt me not; the way is plain- And there they cry For whose dear sake 'twere joy to die!" He bends unto his saddle-bow, The steeds they follow two and two; "O comrades, haste! the way is long, The famine slays, An awful horror veils our ways!" Beneath the pall of prison wall The rush of hoofs they seem to hear; "Ah, God be thanked! our friends are nigh; O fiends accurst Of Want and Thirst, Our comrades gather-do your worst!" |