Furl that Banner!  True, ’tis gory,
  Yet ’tis wreathed around with glory,
  And ’t will live in song and story
    Though its folds are in the dust! 
  For its fame on brightest pages,
  Penned by poets and by sages,
  Shall go sounding down the ages—­
    Furl its folds though now we must.

  Furl that Banner, softly, slowly! 
  Treat it gently—­it is holy,
    For it droops above the dead. 
  Touch it not—­unfold it never;
  Let it droop there, furled forever,—­
      For its people’s hopes are fled!

ABRAM JOSEPH RYAN.

* * * * *

ALL.

  There hangs a sabre, and there a rein,
  With a rusty buckle and green curb chain;
  A pair of spurs on the old gray wall,
  And a mouldy saddle—­well, that is all.

  Come out to the stable—­it is not far;
  The moss grown door is hanging ajar. 
  Look within!  There’s an empty stall,
  Where once stood a charger, and that is all.

  The good black horse came riderless home,
  Flecked with blood drops as well as foam;
  See yonder hillock where dead leaves fall;
  The good black horse pined to death—­that’s all.

  All?  O, God! it is all I can speak. 
  Question me not—­I am old and weak;
  His sabre and his saddle hang on the wall,
  And his horse pined to death—­I have told you all.

FRANCIS ALEXANDER DURIVAGE.

* * * * *

THE CLOSING SCENE.

  Within the sober realm of leafless trees,
    The russet year inhaled the dreamy air;
  Like some tanned reaper, in his hour of ease,
    When all the fields are lying brown and bare.

  The gray barns looking from their hazy hills,
    O’er the dun waters widening in the vales,
  Sent down the air a greeting to the mills
    On the dull thunder of alternate flails.

  All sights were mellowed and all sounds subdued,
    The hills seemed further and the stream sang low,
  As in a dream the distant woodman hewed
    His winter log with many a muffled blow.

  The embattled forests, erewhile armed with gold,
    Their banners bright with every martial hue,
  Now stood like some sad, beaten host of old,
    Withdrawn afar in Time’s remotest blue.

  On slumb’rous wings the vulture held his flight;
    The dove scarce heard its sighing mate’s complaint;
  And, like a star slow drowning in the light,
    The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint.

  The sentinel-cock upon the hillside crew,—­
    Crew thrice,—­and all was stiller than before;
  Silent, till some replying warden blew
    His alien horn, and then was heard no more.

  Where erst the jay, within the elm’s tall crest,
    Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young;
  And where the oriole hung her swaying nest,
    By every light wind like a censer swung;—­