shell
Like fiendish messengers of Death let loose from hell;
Now Nature's peaceful emblem spread o'er glade and hill
Enwraps beneath its folds the bloody field of Perryville.

December 26, 1895.

LONGINGS.

I.

Gim me back my stone-bruised heel,
And them tow-linen pants,
An' that old pole an' line an' reel,
An' all them boyhood ha'nts,
An' that old hat I used to wear,
That didn't hav' no crown,
An' that same crop uv yeller hair--
Sun-burnt on top ter brown--
An' them playmates I used ter know,
An' loved like very brothers--
An' you kin let the old world go
An' giv' its wealth ter others!

II.

Gim me back one gallus, too,
That buttoned with a peg,
An' them blamed ticks that burrowed through
The skin uv either leg,
An' that old single-barrel gun,
As crooked as a rail,
An' that same dog that used ter run
The molly cotton-tail,
An' lem me hav' the tops I spun--
The kites that I hav' sailed--
An' then at last, when life is done,
Who'd keer if it had failed?

DOWN ABOUT OLD SHAKERTOWN.

You may boast about the landscapes fair so far across the sea
Of castled Rhine, and southern France, and favored Italy--
But have you seen, when Springtime flings the scented blossoms down,
The forests and the meadows green around old Shakertown?

You may boast of some that bask beneath perpetual Summer's smiles--
Those "Eden's of the eastern wave"--the sunny Grecian isles--
And others that perhaps you've seen, of beauty and renown,
But come and view the country spread around old Shakertown!

O come and boast that you have been where Nature's lavish hand
Bestowed the gifts of wood and field that vie with any land--
Where valleys wear a velvet robe--the hills an emerald crown
Of bluegrass shimmering in the sun, around old Shakertown!

O come to old Kentucky then, and to her garden spot,
Then wander wheresoe'er you will, it ne'er will be forgot--
For Nature's face is wreathed in smiles nor wears a single frown
To mar the beauty she has spread around old Shakertown!

MEMORIA IN AETERNA.

Sweet Memory! thou faculty divine--
Triumphant o'er the cruel hand of Time!
On thy tablets we may trace
The lines his fingers ne'er efface,
And take with us till latest day
The images that light our way,
And picture thus in a shadowy form
The loved and lost he's from us torn--
Their lids by Death so early sealed--
Life's crimson tide by him congealed--
The tyrant has not all c