Which, like the beacon on the main, The grand old iron train Has swept clean out of sight. THE DEAD DRUMMER-BOY. 'MIDST tangled roots that lined the wild ravine, Where the fierce fight raged hottest through the day, And where the dead in scattered heaps were seen, Amid the darkling forests' shade and sheen, Speechless in death he lay. The setting sun, which glanced athwart the place The silken fringes of his once bright eye No more his hand the fierce tattoo shall beat, And gallant men shall fall. Yet maybe in some happy home, that one A mother reading from the list of dead, Shall chance to view the name of her dear son, THE SENTINEL ON MORRIS ISLAND. 177 And move her lips to say, "God's will be done!" But more than this what tongue shall tell his story? He lived, he died; and so, memento mori - Harpers' Weekly. THE SENTINEL ON MORRIS ISLAND. WITH measured tread along his lonely beat, At twilight, dawn, or in the darksome night, Or when at noon the sun, with growing heat, Lets fall his dazzling light, The watchful sentinel, up and down the shore, At dawn he sees the glitt'ring morning star He sees the city, distant, dull, and gray, Its quaint old roofs, and slender, tapering spires," At night he sees the heavens all spangled o'er With shining gems that like bright watch-fires burn; And though far off, and on a hostile shore, His thoughts to home will turn. Or maybe, in the pitiless, cold storm, While moans the wind like some poor soul in pain, With drooping head and weary, bended form, He braves the pelting rain, And in his mind there dwells a picture fair: An aged man, with locks all silver white; With smiling face looks on the aged dameThey, laughing, clap their little hands in glee, And sweetly lisp his name. Now from the frowning batteries' bristling side So fades the picture: each loved form is fled, Then on his bed, while falls the chilly rain Sweet thoughts of home go flitting through his brain, And fill his dreamful sleep. Harpers' Weekly. "SHODDY." 179 "SHODDY." OLD Shoddy sits in his easy-chair, And cracks his jokes and drinks his ale, Dumb to the shivering soldier's prayer, Deaf to the widows' and orphans' wail. His coat is as warm as the fleece unshorn ; Of the "golden fleece " he is dreaming still; And the music that lulls him night and morn Is the hum-hum-hum of the shoddy-mill. Clashing cylinders, whizzing wheels, Rend and ravel and tear and pick; What can resist these hooks of steel, Sharp as the claws of the ancient Nick? Cast-off mantle of millionaire, Pestilent vagrant's vesture chill, Rags of miser or beggar bare, All are "grist" for the shoddy-mill. Worthless waste and worn-out wool, A soldier lies on the frozen ground, While crack his joints with aches and ails; A 'shoddy' blanket wraps him round, His 'shoddy' garments the wind assails. His coat is shoddy,' well 'stuffed' with 'flocks; ' His feverish sense the demon mocks, The demon that drives the shoddy-mill. Ay! pierce his tissues with shooting pains, Old Rough Shoddy, your work is done : Never again shall the bugle blast Waken the sleeper that lies so still; His dream of home and glory past, Fatal's the work' of the shoddy-mill. Struck by shoddy' and not by ‘shells,’ Drop the mantle and spread the pall. Who of our life-blood take their fill! No meaner'traitor' the nation knows, Than the greedy ghoul of the shoddy-mill! LINT. FIBRE by fibre, shred by shred, It falls from her delicate hand In feathery films, as soft and slow There are jewels of price in her roseate ears, There are costly trifles on every hand, A rare bird sings in a gilded cage A sun-ray glints through a swaying bough, |