4.

Drift, snows of winter, o'er the turf
That hides in death his cherished form!
And roar, ye pine-trees, like the surf
That breaks before this eastern storm!

O turbulent December blast!
O night tempestuous and grim!
Ye cannot chill or overcast
The tender thought that dwells on him!

Wilder the tumult he defied,
Darker the leaden storm he braved,
Where swept the battle's smoking tide,
And banners, torn and blackened, waved.

Not scathless he amid the fray:
"Shot through the lungs,"--the message went:
Now surely Love shall find a way
To hold him here at home content.

"Oh, thou hast done enough," Love cried,
"For duty, fame,--enough, indeed!"
He touched his sabre, and replied,--
"It is our country's hour of need."

Back to the field, from respite brief,
Back to the battle's fiery breath,
Hurried our young high-hearted chief
To lead the charge where waited Death.

Oh, fallen in manhood's fairest noon,--
We will remember, 'mid our sighs,
He never yields his life too soon,
For country and for right who dies.

A FORTNIGHT WITH THE SANITARY.

For three years I had been a thorough believer in the United States
Sanitary Commission. Reading carefully its publications, listening with
tearful interest to the narrations of those who had been its immediate
workers at the front, following in imagination its campaigns of love and
mercy, from Antietam to Gettysburg, from Belle Plain to City Point, and
thence to the very smoke and carnage of the actual battle-field, I had
come to cherish an unfeigned admiration for it and its work. For three
years, too, I had been an earnest laborer at one of its
outposts,--striving with others ever to deepen the interest and increase
the fidelity of the loyal men and women of a loyal New England town. I
was prepared then, both from my hearty respect for the charity and from
my general conception of the nature and vastness of its operations, to
welcome every opportunity to improve my knowledge of its plans and
practical workings. I therefore gladly accepted the invitation which
came to me to visit the head-quarters of the Commission at Washington,
and to examine for myself the character and amount of the benefits which
it confers.

The evening of August 23d found me, after a speedy and pleasant trip
southward, safely ensconced in the