Kiss him once for somebody's sake, One bright curl from its fair mates take- Was it a mother's, soft and white? Been baptized in their waves of light? God knows best. He has somebody's love, Night and morn, on the wings of prayer. Somebody's watching and waiting for him, Pausing to drop on his grave a tear. [Southern.] LEFT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. BY SARAH T. BOLTON. HAT, was it a dream? am I all alone WHAT, In the dreary night and the drizzling rain? Hist!-ah, it was only the river's moan; They have left me behind with the mangled slain. Yes, now I remember it all too well! We met, from the battling ranks apart; Together our weapons flashed and fell, And mine was sheathed in his quivering heart. In the cypress gloom, where the deed was done, He spoke but once, and I could not hear Had heard it before at our mother's knee, When we lisped the words of our evening prayer! I pressed my lips to his death-cold cheek, The blood flowed fast from my wounded side, And then, in my dream, we stood alone On a forest path where the shadows fell; And I heard again the tremulous tone And the tender words of his last farewell. But that parting was years, long years ago, The soldiers who buried the dead away Disturbed not the clasp of that last embrace, But laid them to sleep till the judgment day, Heart folded to heart, and face to face. * UT of the clover and blue-eyed grass, OUT He turned them into the river-lane; One after another he let them pass, Then fastened the meadow bars again. Under the willows, and over the hill, Only a boy! and his father had said Under the feet of the trampling foe. But after the evening work was done, And the frogs were loud in the meadow swamp, Over his shoulder he slung his gun, And stealthily followed the foot-path damp. Across the clover and through the wheat, Though cold was the dew on his hurrying feet, Thrice since then had the lanes been white, And the orchards sweet with apple-bloom; And now when the cows came back at night, The feeble father drove them home. For news had come to the lonely farm The summer day grew cold and late, He went for the cows when the work was done; But down the lane, as he opened the gate, He saw them coming, one by one,— |