For look! from yonder wood that skirts the valley's

further marge,

The flower of all the Southern host move to the final

charge.

By heaven! it is a fearful sight to see their double rank Come with a hundred battle-flags-a mile from flank to flank!

Tramping the grain to earth, they come, ten thousand men abreast;

Their standards wave-their hearts are brave-they hasten not, nor rest,

But close the gaps our cannon make, and onward press, and nigher,

And, yelling at our very front, again pour in their fire.

Now burst our sheeted lightnings forth, now all our wrath has vent!

They die, they wither; through and through their wavering lines are rent.

But these are gallant, desperate men, of our own race and land,

Who charge anew, and welcome death, and fight us hand to hand:

Vain, vain! give way, as well ye may-the crimson die is cast!

Their bravest leaders bite the dust, their strength is failing fast;

They yield, they turn, they fly the field: we smite them as they run;

Their arms, their colors, are our spoil; the furious fight is done!

Across the plain we follow far and backward push the fray:

Cheer! cheer! the grand old Army at last has won the day!

Hurrah! the day has won the cause! No gray-clad host henceforth

Shall come with fire and sword to tread the highways of the North!

'T was such a flood as when ye see, along the Atlantic

shore,

The great spring-tide roll grandly in with swelling surge and roar:

It seems no wall can stay its leap or balk its wild desire Beyond the bound that Heaven hath fixed to higher mount, and higher;

But now, when whitest lifts its crest, most loud its billows

call,

Touched by the Power that led them on, they fall, and fall, and fall.

Even thus, unstayed upon his course, to Gettysburg the foe

His legions led, and fought, and fled, and might no further go.

Full many a dark-eyed Southern girl shall weep her lover dead;

But with a price the fight was ours-we too have tears to shed!

The bells that peal our triumph forth anon shall toll the

brave,

Above whose heads the cross must stand, the hill-side grasses wave!

Alas! alas! the trampled grass shall thrive another year, The blossoms on the apple-boughs with each new spring

appear,

But when our patriot-soldiers fall, Earth gives them up to God;

Though their souls rise in clearer skies, their forms are as the sod;

Only their names and deeds are ours-but, for a century yet,

The dead who fell at Gettysburg the land shall not forget.

God send us peace! and where for aye the loved and lost recline

Let fall, O South, your leaves of palm-O North, your sprigs of pine!

But when, with every ripened year, we keep the harvesthome,

And to the dear Thanksgiving-feast our sons and daughters come

When children's children throng the board in the old homestead spread,

Vol. II.

And the bent soldier of these wars is seated at the head, Long, long the lads shall listen to hear the gray-beard tell

Of those who fought at Gettysburg and stood their ground so well:

"'T was for the Union and the Flag," the veteran shall

say,

Our grand old Army held the ridge, and won that glorious day!"

L

AT GETTYSBURG.

IKE a furnace of fire blazed the midsummer sun,
When to saddle we leaped at the order,

Spurred on by the boom of the deep-throated gun
That told of the foe on our border.

A mist in our rear lay Antietam's dark plain,
And thoughts of its carnage came o'er us;
But smiling beyond surged the fields of ripe grain,
And we swore none should reap it before us.

That night, with the ensign who rode by my side,
On the camp's dreary edge I stood picket,

Our ears intent lest every wind-rustle hide

A foe's stealthy tread in the thicket;

And there, while we watched the first arrows of dawn
Through the veil of the rising mists quiver,
He told how the foeman had closed in upon
His home by the Tennessee River.

He spoke of a sire in his weakness cut down,
With his last breath the traitor-flag scorning;