With springing grass and blossoms new,
    A prayer to bless the nation’s life,
  To freedom’s flower give brighter hue,
    And hide the awful stains of strife.

  O, Boys in Blue, we turn to you,
    The scarred and mangled who survive;
  No more we meet in grand review,
    But all the arts of freedom thrive.

  Still glows the jewel in its shrine,
    Won where the James now tranquil rolls;
  Its wealth for all, the glory thine,
    O memory of heroic souls!

GEORGE BANCROFT GRIFFITH.

* * * * *

THE CAUSE OF THE SOUTH.

FROM “SENTINEL SONGS.”

  The fallen cause still waits,—­
    Its bard has not come yet,
  His song—­through one of to-morrow’s gates
    Shall shine—­but never set.

  But when he comes—­he’ll sweep
    A harp with tears all stringed,
  And the very notes he strikes will weep,
    As they come, from his hand, woe-winged.

  Ah! grand shall be his strain,
    And his songs shall fill all climes,
  And the Rebels shall rise and march again
    Down the lines of his glorious rhymes.

  And through his verse shall gleam
    The swords that flashed in vain,
  And the men who wore the gray shall seem
    To be marshalling again.

  But hush! between his words
    Peer faces sad and pale,
  And you hear the sound of broken chords
    Beat through the poet’s wail.

  Through his verse the orphans cry—­
    The terrible undertone! 
  And the father’s curse and the mother’s sigh,
    And the desolate young wife’s moan.

* * * * *

  I sing, with a voice too low
    To be heard beyond to-day,
  In minor keys of my people’s woe;
    And my songs pass away.

  To-morrow hears them not—­
    To-morrow belongs to fame: 
  My songs—­like the birds’—­will be forgot,
    And forgotten shall be my name.

  And yet who knows! betimes
    The grandest songs depart,
  While the gentle, humble, and low-toned rhymes
    Will echo from heart to heart.

ABRAM JOSEPH RYAN.

* * * * *

SENTINEL SONGS.

  When falls the soldier brave
    Dead—­at the feet of wrong,—­
  The poet sings, and guards his grave
    With sentinels of song.

  Songs, march! he gives command,
    Keep faithful watch and true;
  The living and dead of the Conquered Land
    Have now no guards save you.

  Grave Ballads! mark ye well! 
    Thrice holy is your trust! 
 Go! halt! by the fields where warriors fell,
   Rest arms! and guard their dust.

 List, Songs! your watch is long! 
   The soldiers’ guard was brief,
 Whilst right is right, and wrong is wrong,
   Ye may not seek relief.