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JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG.

Where, in the shade of his peaceful vine,
He heard the low of his gathered kine,
And felt their breath, with incense sweet;
Or, I might say, when the sunset burned.
The old farm gable, he thought it turned
The milk that fell in a babbling flood
Into the milk-pail, red as blood;
Or, how he fancied the hum of bees
Were bullets buzzing among the trees.
But all such fanciful thoughts as these
Were strange to a practical man like Burns,
Who minded only his own concerns,
Troubled no more by fancies fine

Than one of his calm-eyed, long-tailed kine-
Quite old-fashioned and matter-of-fact,

Slow to argue, but quick to act.

That was the reason, as some folks say,

He fought so well on that terrible day.

And it was terrible. On the right
Raged for hours the heavy fight;
Thundered the battery's double bass-
Difficult music for men to face;

While on the left-where now the graves
Undulate like the living waves
That all the day unceasing swept
Up to the pits the rebels kept-
Round-shot plowed the upland glades,
Sown with bullets, reaped with blades;
Shattered fences here and there
Tossed their splinters in the air;
The very trees were stripped and bare;
The barns that once held yellow grain
Were heaped with harvests of the slain;
The cattle bellowed on the plain,

The turkeys screamed with might and main,
And brooding barn-fowl left their rest
With strange shells bursting in each nest.

Just where the tide of battle turns,
Erect and lonely, stood old John Burns.

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JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG.

How do you think the man was dressed?
He wore an ancient, long, buff vest,
Yellow as saffron-but his best;
And buttoned over his manly breast

Was a bright blue coat with a rolling collar,
And large gilt buttons-size of a dollar--
With tails that country-folk called "swaller."
He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned hat,
White as the locks on which it sat.

Never had such a sight been seen
For forty years on the village-green,
Since John Burns was a country beau,
And went to the "quilting" long ago.

Close at his elbows, all that day,
Veterans of the Peninsula,

Sunburnt and bearded, charged away,
And striplings, downy of lip and chin,-
Clerks that the Home Guard mustered in-
Glanced as they passed at the hat he wore,
Then at the rifle his right hand bore,
And hailed him from their youthful lore,
With scraps of a slangy repertoire:

"How are you, White Hat?" "Put her through!"
"Your head's level!" and, "Bully for you!"
Called him "Daddy "—and begged he'd disclose
The name of the tailor who made his clothes,
And what was the value he set on those;
While Burns, unmindful of jeer and scoff,
Stood there picking the rebels off—

With his long, brown rifle and bell-crown hat,
And the swallow-tails they were laughing at.

"Twas but a moment, for that respect.
Which clothes all courage their voices checked;
And something the wildest could understand
Spake in the old man's strong right hand,
And his corded throat, and the lurking frown
Of his eyebrows, under his old bell-crown;

SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.

Until, as they gazed, there crept an awe

Through the ranks in whispers, and some men saw,
In the antique vestments and long, white hair,
The Past of the Nation in battle there.

And some of the soldiers since declare
That the gleam of his old white hat afar,
Like the crested plume of the brave Navarre,
That day was their oriflamme of war.

Thus raged the battle. You know the rest;
How the rebels, beaten, and backward pressed,
Broke at the final charge and ran.
At which John Burns-a practical man—
Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows,
And then went back to his bees and cows.

SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.--JOHN G. WHITTIER.

Fall the rides since the birth of Time,

OF

Told in story or sung in rhyme,—

On Apuleius's Golden Ass,

Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass,
Witch astride of a human hack,
Islam's prophet on Al-Borák,—
The strangest ride that ever was sped
Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead!

Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!

Body of turkey, head of owl,

Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,
Feathered and ruffled in every part,
Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.
Scores of women, old and young,

Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,
Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane,

Shouting and singing the shrill refrain :

"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt

By the women o' Morble'ead!"

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SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.

Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips,
Girls in bloom of cheek and lips,
Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase
Bacchus round some antique vase;
Brief of skirt, with ankles bare,
Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,

With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang,
Over and over the Mænads sang:

"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"

Small pity for him!--He sailed away
From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,—
Sailed away from a sinking wreck,

With his own town's-people on her deck!
"Lay by lay by!" they called to him.
Back he answered, "Sink or swim!
Brag of your catch of fish again!"

And off he sailed through the fog and rain!
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !

Through the street, on either side,
Up flew windows, doors swung wide;
Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,
Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
Hulks of old sailors run aground,

Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,
And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain:
"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!

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"Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried,-
"What to me is this noisy ride?

What is the shame that clothes the skin
To the nameless horror that lives within?

QUEEN MAB.

Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck,
And hear a cry from a reeling deck!
Hate me and curse me,--I only dread

The hand of God and the face of the dead!"
Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!

Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea,
Said, "God has touched him!--why should we?"
Said an old wife, mourning her only son,
"Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!"
So with soft relentings and rude excuse,
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,
And
gave him a cloak to hide him in,
And left him alone with his shame and sin.
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !

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QUEEN MAB.-SHAKESPEARE.

THEN, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone

On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's wat❜ry beams:
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film:
Her wagoner, a small gray-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,

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