ges of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons!

WILL HENRY THOMPSON.

UNITED

ALL day it shook the land--grim battle's thunder tread;
And fields at morning green, at eve are trampled red.
But now, on the stricken scene, twilight and quiet fall;
Only, from hill to hill, night's tremulous voices call;
And comes from far along, where camp fires warning burn,
The dread, hushed sound which tells of morning's sad return.

Timidly nature awakens; the stars come out overhead,
And a flood of moonlight breaks like a voiceless prayer for the dead.
And steals the blessed wind, like Odin's fairest daughter,
In viewless ministry, over the fields of slaughter;
Soothing the smitten life, easing the pang of death,
And bearing away on high the passing warrior's breath.

Two youthful forms are lying apart from the thickest fray,
The one in Northern blue, the other in Southern gray.
Around his lifeless foeman the arms of each are pressed,
And the head of one is pillowed upon the other's breast.
As if two loving brothers, wearied with work and play,
Had fallen asleep together, at close of the summer day.
Foemen were they, and brothers?--Again the battle's din,
With its sullen, cruel answer, from far away breaks in.

BENJAMIN SLEDD.

OLD HEART OF OAK

TO the Navy is ascribed the larger shares in the Civil War, of
overcoming the prowess of the South. "The blockade sapped the industrial
strength of the Confederacy."

A powerful factor in this blockade was David G. Farragut. Farragut was a
Southerner by birth--a Tennessean--and fought, as it were, against his
own hearthstone. Yet, when it is considered that from early youth he was
in the marine service of the government and by arms upheld the national
flag, and when it is remembered with what reverence the seaman regards
the flag under which he serves, his choice is not surprising.

Scenes wherein men fought and died for the Stars and Stripes and often
with their dying breath expressing adoration of the nation's emblem were
common experiences of his life.

In his memoirs is related a pathetic story of a youth's death from
accidental shooting. "Put me in the boat," implored he of his comrades,
"that I may die under my country's flag." Another, a young Scotchman,
who had a leg cut off in battle, cried out mournfully, "I can no longer