For God has marked each sorrowing day,
And numbered every secret tear;
And Heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
For all His children suffer here.

-Bryant.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

OUR bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky,
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep and the wounded to die.

MEN OF ENGLAND.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track;
'T was autumn, and sunshine arose on the way,
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young, I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart.

Stay, stay with us! rest, thou art weary and worn."
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

--Campbel!.

23

MEN OF ENGLAND.

MEN of England! who inherit

Rights that cost your sires their blood,

Men whose undegenerate spirit

Has been proved on land and flood;

By the foes ye 've fought uncounted,
By the glorious deeds ye 've done,
Trophies captured, breaches mounted,
Navies conquered-kingdoms won!

Yet remember, England gathers
Hence but fruitless wreaths of fame,
If the virtues of your fathers

Glow not in your hearts the same.

What are monuments of bravery
Where no public virtues bloom?
What avail in lands of slavery
Trophied temples, arch, and tomb?

Pageants! let the world revere us,
For our people's rights and laws,
And the breasts of civic heroes

Bared in Freedom's holy cause.

VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.

Yours are Hampden's, Russell's glory,
Sydney's matchless shade is yours;
Martyrs in heroic story,

Worth a thousand Agincourts!

We're the sons of sires that baffled
Crowned and mitred tyranny:
They defied the field and scaffold
For their birthrights-so will we.

VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.

THE king was on his throne,
The satraps thronged the hall;
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival;
A thousand cups of gold,

In Judah deemed divine,
Jehovah's vessels, hold

The godless heathen's wine!

In that same hour and hall
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,

And wrote, as if on sand,-
The fingers of a man

(A solitary hand)

Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw and shook,
And bade no more rejoice.
All bloodless waxed his look,
And tremulous his voice :
"Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear
Which mar our royal mirth."

-Campbell.

25

Chaldea's seers are good,
But here they have no skill,
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still;
And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore,
But now they were not sage-
They saw, but knew no more.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth,
He heard the king's command,
He saw the writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night,-

The morrow proved it true.