Silent the orderly, watching with tears in his eyes as his officer scanned Four short pages of writing. "What's this, about 'Marthy Virginia's hand ’?” Swift from his honeymoon he, the dead soldier, had gone from his bride to the strife; Never they met again, but she had written him, telling of that new life, Born in the daughter, that bound her still closer and closer to him as his wife. Laying her baby's hand down on the letter, around it she traced a rude line: 66 If you would kiss the baby," she wrote, " you must kiss this outline of mine." There was the shape of the hand on the page, with the small, chubby fingers outspread. "Marthy Virginia's hand, for her pa,"-so the words on the little palm said. Never a wink slept the colonel that night, for the vengeance so blindly fulfilled, Never again woke the old battle-glow when the bullets their death-note shrilled. Long ago ended the struggle, in union of brotherhood happily stilled; Yet from that field of Antietam, in warning and token of love's command, See! there is lifted the hand of a baby-Marthy Virginia's hand! GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP, THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE. NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, gling moonbeam's misty light, And the lantern dimly burning. Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him. Few and short were the prayers we said, But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow! Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, But half of our heavy task was done, When the clock struck the hour for retiring; Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone-But we left him alone in his glory. CHARLES WOLFE. DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER. IN MEMORY OF GEN. PHILIP KEARNEY, KILLED SEPT. 1, 1862. CLOSE his eyes, his work is done! Rise of moon, or set of sun, Hand of man, or kiss of woman? Lay him low, lay him low, In the clover or the snow! What cares he? he cannot know: As man may, he fought his fight, Lay him low, lay him low, What cares he? he cannot know: Fold him in his country's stars, Lay him low, lay him low, Leave him to God's watching eye, Trust him to the Hand that made him. Mortal love sweeps idly by : God alone has power to aid him. Lay him low, lay him low, In the clover or the snow! What cares he? he cannot know: Lay him low! GEORGE H. BOKER. BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC. MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews i and damps; can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on. I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish'd rows of 66 steel: As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on." He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judg ment-seat: |