THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.-THEODORE O'HARA.

The Legislature of Kentucky caused the dead of that State who fell at Buena Vista to be brought home and interred at Frankfort, under a splendid monuTheodore O'Hara, a gifted Irish-Kentuckian soldier and scholar, was selected the orator and poet of the occasion, whence this beautiful eulogy which has the same application to-day.

ment.

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat

The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.

On fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;

Ne troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;

No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dream alarms;

No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their pluméd heads are bowed;
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.

And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,

And the proud forms, by battle gashed,
Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,

The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are past;

Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight

Those breasts that never more may feel

The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce northern hurricane

That sweeps his great plateau,

Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serried foe.

Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,

Knew well the watchword of that day
Was " Victory or death."

Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O'er all that stricken plain-
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain-
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the gory tide;

Not long, our stout old chieftain* knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.

'Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr's grave
The flower of his beloved land,†
The nation's flag to save.
By rivers of their father's gore
His first-born laurels grew,

And well he deemed the sons would pour
Their lives for glory, too.

Full many a norther's breath had swept
O'er Angostura's‡ plain-

And long the pitying sky has wept
Above the moldering slain.
The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,
Or shepherd's pensive lay,
Alone awakes each sullen height

That frowned o'er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,?
Ye must not slumber there,

Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air;

Your own proud land's heroic soil

Shall be your fitter grave

She claims from war his richest spoil

The ashes of her brave.

So, 'neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast,

On many a bloody shield;

The sunshine of their native sky

Smiles sadly on them here,

And kindred eyes and hearts watch by

The heroes' sepulchre.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead,
Dear as the blood ye gave;

*Zachary Taylor.

+ Gen. Taylor was a native of Kentucky, and the Kentucky troops are here alluded to.

Mexicans knew the battle of Buena Vista by the name of Angostura-which

means "Narrow Pass."

The Indian name for Kentucky.

No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While fame her record keeps,
Or honor points the hallowed spot
Where valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone,
In deathless song shall tell,

When many a vanished age hath flown,
The story how ye fell;

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory's light
That gilds your deathless tomb.

A PHYSICIAN'S STORY.

Dr. Munro, of Hull, gives this incident in his life as a practicing physician. It i a story with an unmistakable moral.

A hard-working, industrious, God-fearing man, a teetotaler of some years' standing, suffering from an abscess in the hand, which had reduced him very much, applied to me for advice. I told him the only medicine he required was rest and to remedy the waste going on in his system, and to repair the damage done to his hand, he was to support himself with a bottle of stout daily. He replied:

"I cannot take it, for I have been a teetotaler for some years."

“Well, I said, “if you know better than the doctor, it is of no use applying to me."

He looked anxiously in my face, evidently weighing the matter over in his mind, and sorrowfully replied:

"Doctor, I was a drunken man once, and should not like to be one again."

He was, much against his will, prevailed upon to take the stout, and in time he recovered from his sickness. When he got well, I, of course, praised up the virtues of stout as a means of saving his life, for which he ought ever to be thankful. I rather lectured him on being such a fanatic (that's the word,) as to refuse taking a bottle of stout daily to restore him to his former health.

I lost sight of my patient for some months; but I am sorry to say that on one fine summer's day, when driving through one of the public thoroughfares, I saw a poor, miserable, ragged-looking man leaning against the door of a common public house, drunk, and incapable of keeping an erect position. Even in his poverty, drurkenness, and misery, I discovered it was my teetotal patient, whom I had not so long ago persuaded to break his pledge. I could not be mistaken. I had reason to know him well, for he had been a member of a Wesleyan Church, an indefatigable Sunday-school teacher, a prayer leader,-whose earnest appeals for the salvation of others I had often listened to with pleasure and edification. I immediately went to the man, and was astonished to find the change which drink, in so short a time, had made in his appearance. With manifest surprise, and looking earnestly at the poor wretch, I said:

"S., is that you?"

66 Yes, it's me. Look at me again; don't you know me?" he answered, with a staggering reel and clipping his words. "Yes, I know you," I said, "and I am grieved to see you in this drunken condition. I thought you were a teetotaler?” "I was before I took your medicine," he answered, with a peculiar grin upon his countenance.

"I am sorry to see you disgracing yourself by such conduct. I am ashamed of you."

Rousing himself, as drunken people will at times, to extraordinary effort, he scoffingly replied:

"Didn't you send me here for my medicine?"

And with a delirious kind of a chuckle he hiccoughed out words I shall never forget:

Doctor, your medicine cured my body, but it damned my soul!"

Two or three of his boozing companions, hearing our conversation, took him under their protection, and I left. As I drove away my heart was full of bitter reflections, that I had been the cause of ruining this man's prospects, not only for this world, but for that which is to come. You may rest assured I did not sleep much that night. The drunken aspect of that man haunted me, and I found myself weeping over the injury I had done him. I rose up early the next

morning and returned to his cottage, with his little garden in front, on the outskirts of the town, where I had often seen him with his wife and happy children playing about, but found to my sorrow, that he had moved some time before. At last, with some difficulty, I found him located in a low neighborhood, not far distant from the public house he had patronized the day before. Here, in such a home as none but a drunkard could inhabit, I found him laid upon a bed of straw, feverish and prostrate from the effects of the previous day's debauch, abusing his wife because she could not get him some more drink; she standing aloof, with tears in her eyes, broken down with care and grief, her children dirty and clothed in rags,—all friendless and steeped in poverty! What a wreck was there!

Turned out of the church of which he was once an ornament, his religion sacrificed, his usefulness marred, his hopes of eternity blasted,-a poor, dejected slave to his passion for drink, without mercy and without hope!

I talked to him kindly, reasoned with him, succored him until he was well, and never lost sight of him or let him have any peace until he had signed the pledge again.

It took him some time to recover his place in the church, but I have had the pleasure of seeing him restored. He is now, more than ever, a devoted worker in the church, and the cause of temperance is pleaded on all occasions. Can you wonder, then, that I never order strong drink for a patient now?

THE OLD DEACON'S LAMENT.-E. T. CORBETT.

Yes, I've been deacon of our church
Nigh on to fifty year,--

Walked in the way of dooty, too,

And kep' my conscience clear.

I've watched the children growin' up,

Seen brown locks turnin' gray,

But never saw such doins yet
As those I've seen to-day.

This church was built by godly men
To glorify the Lord,