All our homes are red with blood;
Long our grief we have withstood;
Every lintel, each door-post
Drips, at tidings from the host,
With the blood of some one lost.

Help us, Lord, our only trust!
We are helpless, we are dust!

Comfort, Lord, the grieving one
Who bewails a stricken son!
Comfort, Lord, the weeping wife,
In her long, long widowed life,
Brooding o'er the fatal strife!

Help us, Lord, our only trust!
We are helpless, we are dust!

On our Nation's day of birth,
Bless Thy own long-favored earth!
Urge the soldier with Thy will!
Aid their leaders with Thy skill!
Let them hear Thy trumpet thrill!
Help us, Lord, our only trust!
We are helpless, we are dust!

Lord, we only fight for peace,
Fight that freedom may increase.
Give us back the peace of old,
When the land with plenty rolled,
And our banner awed the bold!

Help us, Lord, our only trust!
We are helpless, we are dust!

Lest we pray in thoughtless guilt Shape the future as Thou wilt! Purge our realm from hoary crime With Thy battles, dread, sublime, In Thy well-appointed time!

LEFT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.

Help us, Lord, our only trust!
We are helpless, we are dust!

With one heart the Nation's cries
From our choral lips arise;
Thou didst point a noble way
For our Fathers through the fray:
Lead their children thus to-day!

Help us, Lord, our only trust!
We are helpless, we are dust!

In His name who bravely bore
Cross and crown begemmed with gore,
By His last immortal groan

Ere He mounted to His throne,

Make our sacred cause Thine own!

Help us, Lord, our only trust!
We are helpless, we are dust!

163

LEFT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.

BY HOWARD GLYNDON.

Он, my darling! my darling! never to feel
Your hand going over my hair!
Never to lie in your arms again,

Never to know where you are!
Oh, the weary miles that stretch between
My feet and the battle-ground,

Where all that is left of my dearest love
Lies under some yellow mound!

It is but little I might have done
To lighten your parting pain;

But 't is bitter to think that you died alone,
Out in the dark and the rain!

164 LAY OF THE MODERN “KONSERVATIVS.”

Oh, my hero love! - to have kissed the pain
And the mist from your fading eyes!
To have saved one only passionate look
To sweeten these memories!

And thinking of all, I am strangely stunned,
And cannot believe you dead.

You loved me, dear! And I loved you, dear!
And your letter lies there unread!

You are not dead! You are not dead!

God never could will it so

To craze my brain and break my heart -
And shatter my life I know!

Dead! dead! and never a word,
Never a look for me!

Dead! dead! and our marriage-day

Never on earth to be!

I am left alone, and the world is changed,
So dress me in bridal white,

And lay me away in some quiet place
Out of the hateful light.

Harpers' Weekly, Aug 29, 1863.

LAY OF THE MODERN "KONSERVATIVS."

BY CHARITY GRIMES.

I AM a gay "Konservativ,"

I stand by the old Konstitushun, I du;

I go for the Union ez it was,

With the old Dimmycrat ticket, rite thru.
These Black Republikans don't suit me,
Fur I'm a Konservativ man, yu see!

LAY OF THE MODERN “KONSERVATIVS.” 165

I am a Dimmycrat, dyed in the wool;

I go fur free trade, and that sort ov thing; I think it's rite tu let slavery rule

Sooner 'n hev Lincoln, I'd vote fur a king, And hey the Saouth fur an aristockracy,

To rule the hull North, (except the Dimmockracy.)

Shuttin' up folks fur speekin' their mind,

I

In my opinion's a piece ov knavery,

go fur free speech ov every kind,

Except when it interferes with slavery!

(Sich kind ov free speech all Dimmykrats fight, Ef Brooks hed killed Sumner, he 'd done jest right.)

I

go fur aour konstitush'nal rights,

With the rite ov habeas corpus invi❜late; I'll show 'em haow a Dimmykrat fights,

Ef Abram Lincoln attempts tu spile it! I've a right to tawk treason, ez I understand, Tawk's tawk; it's money that buys the land!

I go fur the vigorous conduct ov war;

Of course with a decent regard tu figgers, So ez not tu inkreese aour national debt,

And abuv all not to free the niggers.

I'd ruther the North hed not pulled a trigger,
Than see a traitor shot down by a nigger.

Yes, I am a real Konservativ;

I stand by the Konstitushun, I du!
Ef enny wun sez I'm frends with the Saouth,
I'll sware by hokey it is n't true!

I an't a rebel; but he-m!-speak low
I kinder beleeve in Vallandigham, though!

SAYS PRIVATE MAGUIRE.

BY T. B. ALDRICH.

New

[I must beg the pardon of Private Maguire, of the York Regiment, for thus publicly putting his sentiments into verse. The following lyric will assure him that I have not forgotten how generously he shared his scanty blanket with me, one terrible night in the Virginia woods, when a blanket was worth fifty dollars an inch.]

"ОCH! 'tis nate to be captain or colonel,
Divil a bit would I want to be higher;
But to rust as a private, I think 's an infernal
Predicament surely," says Private Maguire.

66

They can go sparkin' and playin' at billiards,
With greenbacks to spend for their slightest desire,
Loafin' and atin', and dthrinkin' at Willard's.

While we're on the pickets," says Private Maguire.

"Livin' in clover, they think it's a thrifle

To stand out all night in the rain and the mire, And a Rebel hard by with a villainous rifle

Jist ready to pop ye," says Private Maguire.

"Faith, now, it's not that I'm afther complainin';
I'm spilin' to meet ye, Jeff. Davis, Esquire!
Ye blag-gard! it's only I'm weary of thrainin',
And thrainin', and thrainin'," says Private Maguire.

"O Lord, for a row! but, Maguire, be aisy,

Keep yourself sweet for the inemy's fire,
McClellan 's the saplin' that shortly will plaze ye,
Be the holy St. Pathrick!" says Private Maguire.

"And, lad, if ye 're hit, (O, bedad, that eternal

Jimmy O'Dowd would make up to Maria!) Whether ye 're sargeant, or captain, or colonel, Ye'll die with the best, then!" says Private Maguire.