Fair as the garden of the Lord

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall When Lee marched over the mountain-wall,

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 Barbara Fritchie 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;

BARBARA FRITCHIE.

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

"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 Fritchie'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 Fritchie's grave
Flag of Freedom and Union wave!

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

173

And ever the stars above look down

On thy stars below in Frederick town!

Atlantic Monthly.

A THANKSGIVING RAILROAD BALLAD FOR

1863.

BY E. PLURIBUS UNUM, ESQ.

IT was a sturdy engineer,

The Union train had he,

But slippery tracks and heavy grades,
In eighteen sixty-three.

He wiped the sweat from off his brow:
"These drivin' wheels will do,

A better ingine never ran,

She's bound to put us through.

"Ho! Fireman, Fireman Chase, I mean,
Down in the tender there!
We've used a powerful sight of wood,
How much have we to spare?"

"Oh!" out then spoke that fireman bold,
"We've wood and water still;
Old Legal Tender holds enough
To make what steam you will.”

"Ho! Seward, ho! - conductor yet,
In spite of all the row

That Frenchman and that Englishman,
How fare these worthies now?"

Quiet enough, these blustering coves,
That carried it so high;

A THANKSGIVING RAILROAD BALLAD 175

A great big Russian up and blazed
The Frenchman in the eye.

"His friend, John Bull, did not 'pitch in,'

He drew it very mild,

And sat him in the corner down,

Submissive as a child."

"Two stations back, conductor say,
What made that heavy strain?
It felt to me as though you had
Hitched on an extra train."

"Confound that rascal Copperhead,
And all his brood of snakes!
Just at the heaviest of the grade
They put on all the brakes!"

The old wheel-tapper goes his round,
While waits the engineer,

Tink, tink, tink, tink! the tested wheel,
Sound music in his ear.

"I thought as how some wheels were cracked,
But nary one I find,

All right, save that old Jersey one,

And that we need n't mind.

"Ha! here's a telegram from Grant,
The news, he says, is prime,

All clear along the track once more,
We'll yet be in on time.”

The bell now rings, the whistle blows,
The signal given, "All right;"
On thunders now the Union train,
On streams its flag of light,

Which, like the beacon on the main,
Flings hope athwart the night.
Halloo !

The grand old iron train

Has swept clean out of sight.

THE DEAD DRUMMER-BOY.

'MIDST tangled roots that lined the wild ravine,

Where the fierce fight raged hottest through the day, And where the dead in scattered heaps were seen, Amid the darkling forests' shade and sheen, Speechless in death he lay.

The setting sun, which glanced athwart the place
In slanting lines, like amber-tinted rain,
Fell sidewise on the drummer's upturned face,
Where Death had left his gory finger's trace
In one bright crimson stain.

The silken fringes of his once bright eye
Lay like a shadow on his cheek so fair;
His lips were parted by a long-drawn sigh,
That with his soul had mounted to the sky
On some wild martial air.

No more his hand the fierce tattoo shall beat,
The shrill reveillé, or the long-roll's call,
Or sound the charge, when in the smoke and heat
Of fiery onset foe with foe shall meet,

And gallant men shall fall.

Yet maybe in some happy home, that one

A mother reading from the list of dead, Shall chance to view the name of her dear son,