He heard her called, and he heard her blessed, Love leaped to life in those vigils of death. "Oh, fly to your home!" came a whisper dread, "For now the pestilence walks by night." "The greater the need of me here," she said, And bared her arm for the lancet's bite. Was there death, green death, in the atmosphere? Well-alas that it should be so! When a nation's debt reaches reckoning-dayWell for it to be able, but woe To the generation that 's called to pay ! Down from the long gray hospital came Every boy in blue who could walk the floor; The sick and the wounded, the blind and the lame, Formed two long files from her father's door. There was grief in many a manly breast, And that youngest surgeon, was he to blame?— He held the lancet-Heaven only knows. No matter; his heart broke all the same, And he laid him down, and never arose. So Death received, in his greedy hand, Such fates too often such women are for! And mother the children in time of peace. [The strong hold which this song and the three which follow it ("Marching thro' Georgia," "The Battle-Cry of Freedom" and "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp") had upon the favor of the Union soldiers during the war entitles them to insertion here in spite of their lack of poetic merit. The critics, from the time of Mr. Richard Grant White's collection until now, have condemned them as doggerel, but songs that were sung with enthusiasm by all the soldiers of the republic during the dark years of the Civil War cannot be denied the possession of merit, whether criticism is able to recognize it or not.-EDITOR.] JOHN BODY. OHN BROWN'S body lies a-mould'ring in the grave, John Brown's body lies a-mould'ring in the grave, Chorus.-Glory! Glory Hallelujah! Glory! Glory Hallelujah He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord! John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his back. |