It seems but a day since at twilight, low humming,
I rocked him to sleep with his cheek upon mine;
While Robby, the four-year-old, watched for the
coming

Of father, adown the street's indistinct line.

It is many a year since my Harry departed,

To come back no more in the twilight or dawn; And Robby grew weary of watching, and started Alone, on the journey his father had gone.

It is many a year-and this afternoon, sitting
At Robby's old window, I heard the band play,
And suddenly ceased dreaming over my knitting,
To recollect Willie is twenty to-day;

And that, standing beside him this soft May-day morning,

The sun making gold of his wreathed cigar-smoke, I saw in his sweet eyes and lips a faint warning, And choked down the tears when he cagerly spoke:

"Dear mother, you know how those traitors are crowing;

They trample the folds of our flag in the dust; The boys are all fire; and they wish I were going-" He stopped, but his eyes said, "Oh, say if I

O soldier! O soldier! then why is your hand With such eagerness clasped on that sharp battlebrand?

While the flush on your brow, and the flash in your eye,

Show that storms of deep passion are thundering by! ""Tis the Right! 'Tis the Right! God's own high, holy Right,

That has called me, and armed for the terrible fight! O ye shades of my fathers! O ye, to whose hand We have owed the great UNION that blesses our land, Lo, the traitors have struck! They would rend the Star-fold

That for Freedom, and Honor, and Truth, ye unrolled!

How your grand eyes look on me! I rush to the strife,

Not for fame or revenge, but-the National Life!" -N. Y. Tribune, May 2

OH! LET THE STARRY BANNER WAVE,

BY WM. OLAND BOURNE.

I love the flag whose radiant stars
Within its azure field are set,

Whose crimson-flushed and stainless bars
Are types of peace and glory met.

It floats unfurled in every clime,

And speaks to nations yet asleep, While million hearts await the time

When Freedom's vow they too shall keep.

Unrivalled, as when freemen trod
Triumphant on the battle-field,
And pledged to Freedom and to God,
Our banner we will never yield-
It floats the standard of the Free!

On Northern peaks and Southern plains, On hill and vale, from sea to sea,

On mighty streams and mountain chains.

Unfurl the Stars and Stripes to-day,
To kindle fire in every breast!
While millions on the altar lay

A passion that no more can rest;
It was not dead! It only slept,
Self-conscious in the strength of truth,
Till traitors witness how it kept
The vigor of its glorious youth

Should have for a crisis no other recourse, Beneath the fair day-spring of Light and of Truth, Than the old brutem fulmen of tyranny-Force.

From the holes where Fraud, Falsehood, and Hate slink away;

From the crypt in which Error lies buried in chains,

This foul apparition stalks forth to the day,

And would ravage the land which his presence profanes.

Could you conquer us, men of the North-could you bring

Desolation and death on our homes as a floodCan you hope the pure lily, Affection, will spring From ashes all reeking and sodden with blood?

Could you brand us as villains and serfs, know ye not What fierce, sullen hatred, lurks under the scar? How loyal to Hapsburg is Venice, I wot;

How dearly the Pole loves his father, the Czar !

But 'twere well to remember, this land of the sun
Is a nutrix leonum, and suckles a race
Strong-armed, lion-hearted, and banded as one,
Who brook not oppression, and know not dis-
grace.

And well may the schemers in office beware

The swift retribution that waits upon crime, When the lion, RESISTANCE, shall leap from his lair With a fury that renders his vengeance sublime.

Once, men of the North, we were brothers, and still, Though brothers no more, we would gladly be friends;

Nor join in a conflict accurst, that must fill
With ruin the country on which it descends.

But if smitten with blindness, and mad with the rage The gods gave to all whom they wished to destroy, You would not act a new Iliad to darken the age With horrors beyond what is told as of Troy ;

If, deaf as the adder itself to the cries,

When Wisdom, Humanity, Justice implore, You would have our proud eagle to feed on the eyes

Of those who have taught him so grandly to soar;

If there be to your malice no limit imposed,

And you purpose hereafter to rule with the rod The men upon whom you have already closed

Our goodly domain, and the temples of God;—

To the breeze, then, your banner dishonored unfold,
And at once let the tocsin be sounded afar;
We greet you, as greeted the Swiss, Charles the Bold,
With a farewell to peace and a welcome to war!

For the courage that clings to our soil, ever bright, Shall catch inspirations from turf and from tide; Our sons unappalled shall go forth to the fight,

With the smile of the fair, the pure kiss of the bride;

And the bugle its echoes shall send through the past,

In the trenches of Yorktown to waken the slain; While the sods of King's Mountain shall heave at the blast,

And give up its heroes to glory again.

-Charleston Mercury, May 7.

REBELS.

Gen. Beauregard, now in command of the rebel forces in Charleston, has much fame as a tactician.-Harper's Weekly, March 23.

Yes, call them rebels! 'tis the name
Their patriot fathers bore,

And by such deeds they'll hallow it
As they have done before.

At Lexington, and Baltimore,
Was poured the holy chrism;

For Freedom marks her sons with blood,
In sign of their baptism.

Rebels, in proud and bold protest,
Against a power unreal;

A unity which every quest

Proves false as 'tis ideal.

A brotherhood, whose ties are chains,
Which crushes while it holds,
Like the old marble Läocoon
Beneath its serpent folds.

Rebels, against the malice vast,

Malice, that nought disarms, Which fills the quiet of their homes With vague and dread alarms. Against th' invader's daring feet, Against the tide of wrong, Which has been borne, in silence borne, But borne perchance too long.

They would be cowards, did they crouch
Beneath the lifted hand,

Whose very wave, ye seem to think,
Will chill them where they stand.
Yes, call them rebels! 'tis a name
Which speaks of other days,
Of gallant deeds, and gallant men,
And wins them to their ways.