Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,

She took up the flag the men hauled down;

In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.

Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced: the old flag met his sight.

"Halt!"

- the dust-brown ranks stood fast, "Fire!"-out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.

She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.

66

Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country's flag," she said.

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;

The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman's deed and word:

"Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!" he said.
All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet:

All day long that free flag tost
Over the heads of the rebel host.

Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it with a warm good-night.

Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,

And the rebel rides on his raids no more.

Honor to her! and let a tear

Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.

Over Barbara Frietchie's grave,

Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!

Peace and order and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law;

And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town!

John Greenleaf Whittier,

THE

Fredericksburg, Va.

FREDERICKSBURG.

increasing moonlight drifts across my bed,
And on the churchyard by the road, I know
It falls as white and noiselessly as snow.
'T was such a night two weary summers fled;
The stars, as now, were waning overhead.
Listen! Again the shrill-lipped bugles blow
Where the swift currents of the river flow
Past Fredericksburg: far off the heavens are red
With sudden conflagration: on yon height,
Linstock in hand, the gunners hold their breath :
A signal-rocket pierces the dense night,
Flings its spent stars upon the town beneath:
Hark!

the artillery massing on the right,

Hark! the black squadrons wheeling down to Death! Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

IN

IN THE OLD CHURCHYARD.

[N the old churchyard at Fredericksburg A gravestone stands to-day,

Marking the place where a grave has been, Though many and many a year has it seen Since its tenant mouldered away.

And that quaintly carved old stone

Tells its simple tale to all:
"Here lies a bearer of the pall

At the funeral of Shakespeare."

There in the churchyard at Fredericksburg I wandered all alone,

Thinking sadly on empty fame,

How the great dead are but a name,
To few are they really known.
Then upon this battered stone
My listless eye did fall,
Where lay the bearer of the pall
At the funeral of Shakespeare.

Then in the churchyard at Fredericksburg
It seemed as though the air
Were peopled with phantoms that swept by,
Flitting along before my eye,

So sad, so sweet, so fair;
Hovering about this stone,

By some strange spirit's call,
Where lay a bearer of the pall

At the funeral of Shakespeare.

For in the churchyard at Fredericksburg

Juliet seemed to love,

Hamlet mused, and the old Lear fell,
Beatrice laughed, and Ariel

Gleamed through the skies above,
As here, beneath this stone,
Lay in his narrow hall

He who before had borne the pall
At the funeral of Shakespeare.

And I left the old churchyard at Fredericksburg;
Still did the tall grass wave,
With a strange and beautiful grace,

Over the sad and lonely place,
Where hidden lay the grave;
And still did the quaint old stone
Tell its wonderful tale to all:
“Here lies a bearer of the pall
At the funeral of Shakespeare."

Frederick W. Loring.

BAY BILLY.

WAS the last fight at Fredericksburg, –

T Perhaps the day you reck,

Our boys, the Twenty-Second Maine,
Kept Early's men in check.

Just where Wade Hampton boomed away
The fight went neck and neck.