O God! that one of thy creatures

Should e'er work such woe on another !

Wipe the sweat from his brow with your kerchief;

Let the stain tattered collar go wide,
See! he stretches out blindly to search if

The surgeon still stands at his side.
My son's over yonder! he's wounded-

Oh ! this ball that has broken my thigh!"
And again he burst out, all a-tremble,-

“In thy mercy, O God! let me die!”

Pass on! It is useless to linger

While others are claiming your care; There is need of your delicate finger,

For your womanly sympathy, there! There are sick ones athirst for caressing

There are dying ones raving for homeThere are wounds to be bound with a blessing

And shrouds to make ready for some.

They have gathered about you the harvest

Of death, in its ghastliest view;
The nearest as well as the farthest

Is here with the traitor and true!
And crowned with your beautiful patience,

Made sunny with love at the heart,
You must balsam the wounds of a nation,

Nor falter, nor shrink from your part !

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159

Up and down through the wards, where the fever

Stalks noisome, and gaunt and impure,
You must go with your steadfast endeavor

To comfort, to counsel, to cure !
I grant that the task 's superhuman,

But strength will be given to you
To do for these dear ones what woman

Alone in her pity can do.

And the lips of the mothers will bless you

As angels sweet visaged and pale !
And the little ones run to caress you,
While the wives and the sisters cry

“Hail !”
But e'en if you drop down unheeded,

What matter? God's ways are the best ;
You ’ve poured out your life where 't was needed,

And He will take care of the rest.

We thousand more

E are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred

thousand more, From Mississippi's winding stream and from New Eng

land's shore; We leave our ploughs and workshops, our wives and

children dear, With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear; We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before : We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand

more!

If you look across the hill-tops that meet the northern sky, Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry; And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside,

Three bundred Tbousand more

161

And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride, And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave

music pour :

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand

more !

If you look all up our valleys where the growing harvests

shine, You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into line; And children from their mother's knees are pulling at

the weeds, And learning how to reap and sow against their country's

needs ; And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage

door : We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand

more!

You have called us, and we 're coming, by Richmond's

bloody tide To lay us down, for Freedom's sake, our brothers' bones

beside, Or from foul treason's savage grasp to wrench the mur

derous blade, And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade. Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone

before: We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand

[During the battles in the Wilderness at the beginning of the campaign of 1864, General Robert E. Lee, impressed with the desperate necessity of carrying a certain peculiarly difficult position, seized the colors of a Texas regiment and undertook to lead the perilous assault in person. The troops and their colonel remonstrated with vehemence, the colonel, in his men's behalf, pledging the regiment to carry the position if General Lee would retire. The troops advanced to the charge shouting “Lee to the Rear!” as a sort of battle cry.-EDITOR.]

DAW

AWN of a pleasant morning in May

Broke through the Wilderness cool and gray ; While perched in the tallest tree-tops, the birds Were carolling Mendelssohn's “Songs without Words."

Far from the haunts of men remote,
The brook brawled on with a liquid note;