The mounted guns, all threatening and grim,
Speak not their thunderous words,

And in and out among their muzzles skim,
Unscared, the meadow birds.

In the horizon waits one patient star,
A sphere of silver white,

While the full moon, above the hill-tops far,
Slow reddens into sight.

*

Elizabeth Akers Allen.

BY THE POTOMAC.

HE soft new grass is creeping o'er the graves

THE

By the Potomac; and the crisp ground-flower Lifts its blue cup to catch the passing shower; The pine-cone ripens, and the long moss waves Its tangled gonfalons above our braves. Hark, what a burst of music from yon bower!— The Southern nightingale that, hour by hour, In its melodious summer madness raves. Ah, with what delicate touches of her hand, With what sweet voices, Nature seeks to screen The awful Crime of this distracted land, Sets her birds singing, while she spreads her green Mantle of velvet where the Murdered lie,

As if to hide the horror from God's eye.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

NIGHT SCENE.

IS midnight!

through the dusky pines

The night-wind faintly sighs,

the dew

Just twinkles on the leaf, as shines
The starlight from its home of blue:
Around how calm! above how clear!
No murmur wakes an echo here.

The broad deep river noiseless flows,
The ripple on the shore expires
Without a sound, its bosom glows,
Another sky with all its fires,
And glasses purely, deeply down
Night's raven brow and starry crown.

Far down the winding silent bay
Where wave and sky uniting sweep
In darker lines, a trembling ray

Comes gleaning o'er the mirrored deep;
Bright, bright amid the horizon's gloom
It glows like hope above the tomb!

Through many a wild and stormy night,
Amid the tempest's gathering war
And hissing wrath, that Cresset's light
Above the surge has beamed, --a star
To cheer the seaman's eye, when dark
And dashing billows smote his bark.

But thus, when heaven and earth are still,
And e'en yon snowy wild swan's cry

Is hushed,

no echo from the hill,

And winds are sleeping in the sky,
How pure that midnight beacon glows,
The brooding spirit of repose!

But see! yon eastern blood-red streaks
Deepening along night's starry band!
Slow rising o'er the wood-crowned peaks,
Whose shadows sweep the distant strand,
Peers forth the queen of night, -- but now
The crown is fading on her brow.

Her glance is on the deep, so dim
And joyless o'er the blue wave bending,
You scarce may mark on ocean's brim

Yon white sail with the sea-mist blending;
Away! how pale its light wing flies,
Like some pure spirit of the skies!

Lone lovely night! in hours like this,
To heaven first rose my raptured eye;
And pictured forms in dreams of bliss

Came floating through the shadowy sky; Gay dreams of youth! - they could not stay, But fled like yon lone sail away!

Rappahannock, the River, Va.

MUSIC IN CAMP.

TWO armies covered hill and plain

Where Rappahannock's waters
Run deeply crimsoned with the stain
Of battle's recent slaughters.

The summer clouds lay pitched like tents
In meads of heavenly azure,

And each dread gun of the elements
Slept in its hid embrasure.

The breeze so softly blew, it made
No forest leaf to quiver,

And the smoke of the random cannonade
Rolled slowly from the river.

And now where circling hills looked down,
With cannon grimly planted,

O'er listless camp and silent town
The golden sunset slanted,

When on the fervid air there came
A strain, now rich, now tender:
The music seemed itself aflame
With day's departing splendor.

A Federal band, which eve and morn
Played measures brave and nimble,

Had just struck up with flute and horn,
And lively clash of cymbal.

Down flocked the soldiers to the banks,
Till, margined by its pebbles,

One wooded shore was blue with "Yanks,"
And one was gray with "Rebels."

Then all was still; and then the band,
With movement light and tricksy,
Made stream and forest, hill and strand,
Reverberate with "Dixie."

The conscious stream, with burnished glow,
Went proudly o'er its pebbles,
But thrilled throughout its deepest flow
With yelling of the Rebels.

Again a pause, and then again

The trumpet pealed sonorous,

And "Yankee Doodle" was the strain
To which the shore gave chorus.

The laughing ripple shoreward flew
To kiss the shining pebbles:

Loud shrieked the swarming "boys in blue"
Defiance to the Rebels.

And yet once more the bugle sang

Above the stormy riot.

No shout upon the evening rang:

There reigned a holy quiet.