the brave young blood of that gallant lad, Worth Bagley, of the "Old North State," son, too, of an old Confederate soldier, cemented forever the reconciliation between the North and South.

And as in quick succession the names of Hobson and Blue and "Fighting" Joe Wheeler blazed in official despatches, the thunderous shouts of a reunited people drowned even the "ironthroated plaudits of the guns.'

As Marshall Ney said when he saw the beardless young French conscripts rushing in all the joyous valor of their youth upon the Russian guns at Weissenfels: "C'est dans le sang! C'est dans le sang" ("It's in the blood! It's in the blood!").

Many of you, doubtless, traversing the noble hall of William Rufus, have entered the corridors of St. Stephen's, and there, glancing down the long line of gleaming statues, have paused to look upon the calm, majestic features of John Hampden, the most able and resolute man in the kingdom, who fell on the Parliamentarian side at Chalgrave Field—and, immediately opposite, upon the grave, romantic face of Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland, "that incomparable young man,” as Clarendon calls him, who in the very flower of his young manhood gave his life for his king in that unhappy civil strife.

It may well be, that when this generation shall have passed away, and the motives and convictions of men shall be apprehended without passion, that the young American, treading some one of those stately avenues that lead to our national Capitol, shall pause opposite "the presentment" in bronze of Grant and of Sherman, to gaze upon the heroic figures of Lee and of Jackson.

God forbid that war, civil or foreign, should come again in this our time. He who has once seen the sufferings and sorrows and desolation that it brings to happy homes can never wish to see it again.

But should it come, men of the North and of the East and of the West-I speak for my people-that people who never yet faltered in half-way defiance to a foe or in half-way welcome to a friend-I speak for my people-ere the first call to arms of our common country shall have died upon the breeze, you shall hear the tramp of our legions as they wheel

into line to touch elbows with the stalwart sons of New England, eager to keep time with cadenced step to the music of the Union-aye, and to hedge round with stubborn steel the "Starry Banner," that symbolizes once more to us, as to you, the majesty of American citizenship and the indestructibility of Republican institutions.

REUNION OF THE VIRGINIA DIVISION OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA

HERE in this battle-drowned capital of our ancient Commonwealth, shall the men who wore the gray yearly gather and recall the names of those who went forth to battle at the bidding of Virginia-who now lie sleeping on the bosom of this Mother, that, not unmindful of their valor, not ungrateful for this filial devotion, shall keep forever bright the splendor of their deeds, "till earth, and seas, and skies are rended."

No "Painted Porch" is hers, like that of Athens, where, for half a thousand years, the descendants of the men who had followed Miltiades to victory might trace the glories of their Marathon-no gleaming Chapelle des Invalides, with the light flaming through gorgeous windows on tattered flags of battle

-no grand historic Abbey, like that of England, where hard by the last resting-place of her princes and her kings sleep the great soldiers who have writ glorious names high upon their country's roll with the point of their stainless swords.

Nay, none of this is hers.

Only the frosty stars to-night keep solemn watch and ward above the wind-swept graves of those who, from Potomac to James, from Rapidan to Appomattox, yielded up their lives that they might transmit to their children the heritage of their fathers.

Pondering in her heart all their deeds and words, Virginia calls us, her surviving sons, "from weak regrets and womanish laments to the contemplation of their virtues," bidding us, in the noble words of Tacitus, to "honor them not so much with transitory praises as with our reverence, and, if our powers permit us, with our emulation."

Reminding her children, who were faithful to her in war,

that "the reward of one duty is the power to fulfil another," she points to the tasks left unfinished when the "nerveless hands drooped over the spotless shields," and with imperious love claims a fealty no less devoted in these days of peace.

I claim no vision of seer or prophet, yet I fancy that even now I descry the faint dawn of that day, which thousands wait on with expectant eyes; when all this land, still the fairest on the globe-this land, which has known so long what old Isaiah termed the "dimness of anguish"-shall grow glad again in the broad sunlight of prosperity, and when from Alleghany to Chesapeake shall resound the hum and stir of busy life; when yonder noble roadstead, where our ironclad Virginia revolutionized the naval tactics of two continents, shall be whitened by many a foreign sail, and you, her children, shall tunnel those grand and hoary mountains, whose every pass Lee and "Old Stonewall" have made forever historic by matchless skill and daring. Thus, comrades, assured of her heroic Past, stirred by the great hope for her Future, may we tonight re-echo the cry of Richmond on Bosworth Field:

Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again;
That she may long live here, God say amen!

DREAMING IN THE TRENCHES*

I picture her there in the quaint old room,
Where the fading fire-light starts and falls,
Alone in the twilight's tender gloom

With the shadows that dance on the dim-lit walls.

Alone, while those faces look silently down
From their antique frames in a grim repose-

Slight scholarly Ralph in his Oxford gown,
And stanch Sir Alan, who died for Montrose.†

There are gallants gay in crimson and gold,

There are smiling beauties with powdered hair,
But she sits there, fairer a thousand-fold,

Leaning dreamily back in her low arm-chair.

*Petersburg Trenches, 1864.

†James Graham, Marquis of Montrose (1612-1650), the poet, and great soldier and supporter of Charles I.

And the roseate shadows of fading light

Softly clear steal over the sweet young face, Where a woman's tenderness blends to-night

With the guileless pride of a knightly race.

Her small hands lie clasped in a listless way
On the old Romance-which she holds on her knee-
Of Tristam, the bravest of knights in the fray,
And Iseult, who waits by the sounding sea.

And her proud, dark eyes wear a softened look
As she watches the dying embers fall:
Perhaps she dreams of the knight in the book,
Perhaps of the pictures that smile on the wall.

What fancies I wonder are thronging her brain,
For her cheeks flush warm with a crimson glow!
Perhaps ah! me, how foolish and vain!

But I'd give my life to believe it so!

Well, whether I ever march home again

To offer my love and a stainless name, Or whether I die at the head of my menI'll be true to the end all the same.

CHRISTMAS NIGHT OF '62

The wintry blast goes wailing by,
The snow is falling overhead;
I hear the lonely sentry's tread,
And distant watch-fires light the sky.

Dim forms go flitting through the gloom;
The soldiers cluster round the blaze
To talk of other Christmas days,
And softly speak of home and home.

My sabre swinging overhead

Gleams in the watch-fire's fitful glow, While fiercely drives the blinding snow, And memory leads me to the dead.

My thoughts go wandering to and fro,
Vibrating 'twixt the Now and Then;
I see the low-browed home again,
The old hall wreathed with mistletoe.

And sweetly from the far off years
Comes borne the laughter faint and low,
The voices of the Long Ago!
My eyes are wet with tender tears.

I feel again the mother-kiss,

I see again the glad surprise

That lighted up the tranquil eyes

And brimmed them o'er with tears of bliss.

As, rushing from the old hall-door,
She fondly clasped her wayward boy—
Her face all radiant with the joy
She felt to see him home once more.

My sabre swinging on the bough

Gleams in the watch-fire's fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow

Aslant upon my saddened brow.

Those cheerful faces all are gone!

Asleep within the quiet graves

Where lies the snow in drifting waves— And I am sitting here alone.

There's not a comrade here to-night

But knows that loved ones far away On bended knees this night will pray: "God bring our darling from the fight."

But there are none to wish me back,

For me no yearning prayers arise.
The lips are mute and closed the eyes—
My home is in the bivouac.

In the Army of Northern Virginia.