If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn should rise!

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,

Or whispering with white lips, "The foe! they come! they come!" Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,

Last eve, in Beauty's circle proudly gay;

The midnight brought the signal sound of strife,
The morn, the marshaling in arms—the day
Battle's magnificently stern array!

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent
The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse-friend, foe-in one red burial blent.

124.-THOU WILT NEVER GROW OLD.
E. C. HOWARTH.

Thou wilt never grow old,

Nor weary, nor sad, in the home of thy birth.
My beautiful lily, thy leaves will unfold

In a clime that is purer and brighter than earth.
holy and fair! I rejoice thou art there,

In that kingdom of light with its cities of gold,
Where the air thrills with angel hosannas, and where
Thou wilt never grow old, love,

Never grow old!

I am a pilgrim, with sorrow and sin

Haunting my footsteps wherever I go;

Life is a warfare my title to win;

Well will it be if it end not in woe.

Pray for me, sweet: I am laden with care;
Dark are my garments with mildew and mold:
Thou, my bright angel, art sinless and fair,
And wilt never grow old, love,

Never grow old!

Now canst thou hear from thy home in the skies
All the fond words I am whispering to thee?
Dost thou look down on me with the soft eyes
That greeted me oft ere thy spirit was free?

So I believe, though the shadows of time
Hide the bright spirit I yet shall behold:
Thou wilt still love me, and—pleasure sublime!—
Thou wilt never grow old, love,

Never grow old!

Thus wilt thou be when the pilgrim, grown gray,

Weeps when the vines from the hearthstone are riven: Faith shall behold thee as pure as the day

Thou wert torn from the earth and transplanted in heaven.

O holy and fair! I rejoice thou art there,

In that kingdom of light with its cities of gold,
Where the air thrills with angel hosannas, and where
Thou wilt never grow old, love,

Never grow old!

125.-OUR HONORED DEAD.

H. W. BEECHER.

How bright are the honors which await those who, with sacred fortitude and patriotic patience, have endured all things that they might save their native land from division and from the power of corruption. The honored dead! They that die for a good cause are redeemed from death. Their names are gathered and garnered. Their memory is precious. Each place grows proud for them who were born there. There is to be, ere long, in every village, and in every neighborhood, a glowing pride in its martyred heroes. Tablets shall preserve their names. Pious love shall renew their inscriptions as time and the unfeeling elements efface them. And the national festivals shall give multitudes of precious names to the orator's lips. Children shall grow up under more sacred inspirations, whose elder brothers, dying nobly for their country, left a name that honored and inspired all who bore it.

Oh, tell me not that they are dead—that generous host, that airy army, of invisible heroes. They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon society, and inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism? Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your tears. He was your son; but now he is the nation's. He made your household bright: now his example inspires a thousand households. Dear to his brothers and sisters, he is now brother to every generous youth in the land. Before, he was narrowed,

appropriated, shut up to you. Now he is augmented, set free, and given to all. Before he was yours: now he is ours. He has died from the family that he might live to the nation. Not one name shall be forgotten or neglected, and it shall by-and-by be confessed of our modern heroes, as it is of an ancient hero, that he did more for his country by his death than by his whole life.

Neither are they less honored who shall bear through life the marks of wounds and suffering. Neither epaulette nor badge is so honorable as wounds received in a good cause. Oh, mother of lost children! sit not in darkness, nor sorrow whom a nation honors. Oh, mourners of the early dead, they shall live again, and live forever. Your sorrows are our gladness. The nation lives because you gave it men that loved it better than their own lives. And when a few more days shall have cleared the perils from around the nation's brow, and she shall sit in unsullied garments of liberty, with justice upon her forehead, love in her eyes, and truth upon her lips, she shall not forget those whose blood gave vital currents to her heart, and whose life given to her, shall live with her life till time shall be no more.

Every mountain and hill shall have its treasured name, every river shall keep some solemn title, every valley and every lake shall cherish its honored register; and till the mountains are worn out, and the rivers forget to flow, till the clouds are weary of replenishing springs, and the springs forget to gush, and the rills to sing, shall their names be kept fresh with reverent honors which are inscribed upon the book of National Remembrance.

Captain, heard ye e'er a player
Beat in truer time than he?"
"Nay, in truth! brave Sandie Murray
Drummer of our corps shall be.'

"I gie ye thanks-but, Captain, maybe
Ye will hae a kindly care

For the friendless, lonely laddie,
When the battle wark is sair:
For Sandie's aye been gude and gentle,
And I've nothing else to love,
Nothing but the grave off yonder,
And the Father up above.'

Then her rough hand gently laying

On the curl-encircled head,

She blessed her boy. The tent was silent,
Not another word was said;

For Captain Grey was sadly dreaming
Of a benison long ago

Breathed above his head then golden,
Bending now, and touched with snow.
"Good-bye, Sandie." "Good-bye, mother.
I'll come back some summer day;
Don't you fear-they don't shoot drummer:
Ever: do they, Captain Grey?

One more kiss-watch for me, mother,
You will know 'tis surely me
Coming home for you will hear me
Playing soft the reveille."

After battle. Moonbeams ghastly
Seemed to blink in strange affright,
As the scudding clouds before them
Shadowed faces dead and white;
And the night wind softly whispered,
When low moans its light wing bore-
Moans that ferried spirits over

Death's dark wave to yonder shore.
Wandering where a footstep careless
Might go plashing down in blood,
Or a helpless hand lie grasping

Death and daisies from the sod-
Captain Grey walked swiftly onward,
While a faintly-beaten drum
Quickened heart and step together:
"Sandie Murray! See, I come!

Is it thus I find you, laddie?
Wounded, lonely, lying here,
Playing thus the reveille?

See the morning is not near."

A moment paused the drummer boy,
And lifted up his drooping head:
"Oh, Captain Grey, the light is coming;

'Tis morning, and my prayers are said.
"Morning! See, the plains grow brighter-
Morning-and I'm going home;
That is why I play the measure.
Mother will not see me come;
But you'll tell her, won't you, Captain--"
Hush! the boy has spoken true;
To him the day has dawned forever,
Unbroken by the night's tattoo.

127.-THE STREAM OF LIFE.

BISHOP HEBER.

Life bears us on like the current of a mighty river. Our boat, at first, glides down the narrow channel, through the playful murmurings of the little brook and the windings of its grassy border. The trees shed their blossoms over our young heads; the flowers on the brink seem to offer themselves to our hands; we are happy in hope, and we grasp eagerly at the beauties around us, but the stream hurries us on, and still our hands are empty.

Our course in youth and manhood is along a wider and deeper flood, and amid objects more striking and magnificent. We are animated by the moving picture of enjoyment and industry which passes before us; we are excited by some shortlived success, or depressed and made miserable by some equally short-lived disappointment. But our energy and our dependence are both in vain. The stream bears us on, and our joys and our griefs are alike left behind us; we may be shipwrecked, but we cannot anchor; our voyage may be hastened, but it cannot be delayed; whether rough or smooth, the river hastens toward its home, till the roaring of the ocean is in our ears, and the tossing of the waves is beneath our keel, and the land lessens from our eyes, and the floods are lifted up around us, and we take our last leave of the earth and its inhabitants; and of our further voyage there is no witness but the Infinite and Eternal.

And do we still take so much anxious thought for future days, when the days which have gone by have so strangely and so uniformly deceived us? Can we still so set our hearts on the creatures of God, when we find by sad experience that the