WE

Monterey.

E were not many we who stood
Before the iron sleet that day;

Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if he but could
Have been with us at Monterey.

Now here, now there, the shot was hailed
In deadly drifts of fiery spray ;

Yet not a single soldier quailed

When wounded comrades round them wailed
Their dying shouts at Monterey.

And on, still on, our column kept,

Through walls of flame, its withering way;
Where fell the dead, the living stept,
Still charging on the guns that swept
The slippery streets of Monterey.

The foe himself recoiled aghast,

When, striking where he strongest lay, We swooped his flanking batteries past, And, braving full their murderous blast, Stormed home the towers of Monterey.

Our banners on those turrets wave,

And there our evening bugles play,
Where orange-boughs above their grave
Keep green the memory of the brave
Who fought and fell at Monterey.

We are not many-we who pressed
Beside the brave who fell that day;
But who of us hath not confessed
He'd rather share their warrior rest
Than not have been at Monterey?

CHARLES F. HOFFMAN

THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD. 109

ΤΗ

The Arsenal at Springfield.

HIS is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms.

Ah! what a sound will rise-how wild and dreary-
When the death-angel touches those swift keys!
What loud lament and dismal Miserere

Will mingle with their awful symphonies!

I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus-
The cries of agony, the endless groan,
Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
In long reverberations reach our own.

On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer; Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song; And loud, amid the universal clamor,

O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.

I hear the Florentine, who from his palace
Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din;
And Aztec priests upon their teocallis

Beat the wild war-drums made of serpents' skin;

The tumult of each sacked and burning village;
The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;
The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage;

The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;

The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,
The rattling musketry, the clashing blade--

And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,

The diapason of the cannonade.

Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,

With such accursed instruments as these, Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, And jarrest the celestial harmonies ?

Were half the power that fills the world with terior,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals nor forts;

The warrior's name would be a name abhorred ;
And every nation that should lift again

Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain!

Down the dark future, through long generations,
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,

I hear once more the voice of Christ say, "Peace!"

Peace!-and no longer from its brazen portals
The blast of war's great organ shakes the skies;
But, beautiful as songs of the immortals,

The holy melodies of love arise.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

The Battle Autumn (1862).

HE flags of war like storm-birds fly,

THE

The charging trumpets blow;

Yet rolls no thunder in the sky,

No earthquake strives below.

And, calm and patient, Nature keeps
Her ancient promise well,

Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps
The battle's breath of hell.

THE BATTLE AUTUMN.

And still she walks in golden hours

Through harvest-happy farms;

And still she wears her fruits and flowers
Like jewels on her arms.

What mean the gladness of the plain,

This joy of eve and morn,

The mirth that shakes the beard of grain,

And yellow locks of corn?

Ah! eyes may well be full of tears,
And hearts with hate are hot:
But even-paced come round the years,
And Nature changes not.

She meets with smiles our bitter grief,
With songs our groans of pain;
She mocks with tint of flower and leaf
The war-field's crimson stain.

Still, in the cannon's pause, we hear
Her sweet thanksgiving psalm;
Too near to God for doubt or fear,
She shares the eternal calm.

She knows the seed lies safe below
The fires that blast and burn;
For all the tears of blood we sow
She waits the rich return.

She sees with clearer eye than ours
The good of suffering born,-

The heart that blossoms like her flowers,
And ripens like her corn.

Oh, give to us, in times like these,

The vision of her eyes;

And make her fields and fruited trees

Our golden prophecies!

Oh, give to us her finer ear!

Above this stormy din

We, too, would hear the bells of cheer

Ring Peace and Freedom in!

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

How Sleep the Brave!

HOW sleep the brave who sink to rest

By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung:
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

WILLIAM COLLINS

E

Chillon.

TERNAL Spirit of the chainless mind!

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art;
For there thy habitation is the heart,

The heart which love of thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned,
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,
Their country conquers with their martyrdom,
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind
Chillon thy prison is a holy place,
And thy sad floor an altar, for 'twas trod,