THE SENTINEL ON MORRIS ISLAND.

And move her lips to say, "God's will be done!"
And bow in grief her head.

But more than this what tongue shall tell his story
Perhaps his boyish longings were for fame?
He lived, he died; and so, memento mori –
Enough if on the page of War and Glory
Some hand has writ his name.

?

177

Harpers' Weekly.

THE SENTINEL ON MORRIS ISLAND.

WITH measured tread along his lonely beat,
At twilight, dawn, or in the darksome night,
Or when at noon the sun, with growing heat,
Lets fall his dazzling light,

The watchful sentinel, up and down the shore,
Paces with weary feet the yielding sand,
While the salt waves, with deep and sullen roar,
Shout hoarsely to the land.

At dawn he sees the glitt'ring morning star
Set like a jewel in the roseate sky;
And glimmering to the sight, within the bar,
The fleet at anchor lie.

He sees the city, distant, dull, and gray,

Its quaint old roofs, and slender, tapering spires,
When darkly painted at the close of day
Against the sunset's fires.

At night he sees the heavens all spangled o'er
With shining gems that like bright watch-fires burn;
And though far off, and on a hostile shore,

His thoughts to home will turn.

Or maybe, in the pitiless, cold storm,

While moans the wind like some poor soul in pain, With drooping head and weary, bended form, He braves the pelting rain,

And in his mind there dwells a picture fair:
A cottage-room with walls like purest snow,
And round the hearthstone friendly faces there
Shine in the fire's warm glow.

An aged man, with locks all silver white;
An aged dame, his helpmate she through life;
And still a third, with mild eyes beaming bright,
Perhaps the soldier's wife;

And rosy children climb upon her knee

With smiling face looks on the aged dame They, laughing, clap their little hands in glee, And sweetly lisp his name.

Now from the frowning batteries' bristling side
Peals forth the murderous cannon's awful roar,
Waking the answering echoes, far and wide,
From shore to farthest shore.

So fades the picture: each loved form is fled, -
That waking vision, beautiful, yet brief; -
And up the beach with solid, steady tread
Comes on the brave "Relief."

Then on his bed, while falls the chilly rain
And other sentinels their vigils keep,

Sweet thoughts of home go flitting through his brain, And fill his dreamful sleep.

Harpers' Weekly.

"SHODDY."

179

"SHODDY."

OLD Shoddy sits in his easy-chair,

And cracks his jokes and drinks his ale, Dumb to the shivering soldier's prayer,

Deaf to the widows' and orphans' wail. His coat is as warm as the fleece unshorn;

Of the "golden fleece" he is dreaming still; And the music that lulls him night and morn Is the hum-hum-hum of the shoddy-mill.

Clashing cylinders, whizzing wheels,

Rend and ravel and tear and pick;
What can resist these hooks of steel,
Sharp as the claws of the ancient Nick ?
Cast-off mantle of millionaire,

Pestilent vagrant's vesture chill,
Rags of miser or beggar bare,

All are "grist" for the shoddy-mill.

Worthless waste and worn-out wool,
Flung together, a spacious sham!
With just enough of the "fleece" to pull
Over the eyes of poor Uncle Sam.
Cunningly twisted through web and woof,

Not "shirt of Nessus" such power to kill;
Look, how the prints of his hideous hoof
Track the fiend of the shoddy-mill!

A soldier lies on the frozen ground,

While crack his joints with aches and ails;

A 'shoddy' blanket wraps him round,

His shoddy' garments the wind assails.

His coat is shoddy,' well'stuffed' with 'flocks; '

He dreams of the flocks on his native hill;

His feverish sense the demon mocks,

The demon that drives the shoddy-mill.

Ay! pierce his tissues with shooting pains,
Tear the muscles, and rend the bone,
Fire with frenzy the heart and brain,

Old Rough Shoddy, your work is done:
Never again shall the bugle blast

Waken the sleeper that lies so still; His dream of home and glory past, Fatal's the 'work' of the shoddy-mill.

6

Struck by shoddy' and not by 'shells,'
And not by shot our brave ones fall;
Greed of gold the story tells,

Drop the mantle and spread the pall.
Out on the vampires! out on those

Who of our life-blood take their fill! No meaner'traitor' the nation knows,

Than the greedy ghoul of the shoddy-mill!

LINT.

FIBRE by fibre, shred by shred,

It falls from her delicate hand
In feathery films, as soft and slow
As fall the flakes of a vanishing snow
In the lap of a summer land.

There are jewels of price in her roseate ears,
And gold round her white wrist coils;
There are costly trifles on every hand,
And gems of art from many a land
In the chamber where she toils.

A rare bird sings in a gilded cage
At the open casement near;

A sun-ray glints through a swaying bough,
And lights with a diamond radiance now
The dew of a falling tear!

LINT.

A sob floats out to the summer air
With the song-bird's latest trill;
The gossamer folds of the drapery

Are waved by the swell of a long, low sigh,
And the delicate hands are still.

“Ah! beauty of earth is naught, is naught!
And a gilded youth is vain!

I have seen a sister's scarred face shine
With a youth and beauty all divine
By the soldier's couch of pain!"

"I have read of another whose passing shade

On their pillows the mangled kissed

In the far Crimea ! "

181

There are no more tears,

But she plucks the gems from her delicate ears, And the gold from her slender wrist.

The bird still sings in his gilded cage ;
But the Angel in her heart

Hath stung her soul with a noble pain;
And beauty is naught, and youth is vain,
While the Patriot's wounds still smart!

Fibre by fibre, shred by shred,

Still fall from her delicate hand The feathery films, as soft and slow As fall the flakes of a vanishing snow In the lap of a summer land.

There are crimson stains on breasts and brows,

And fillets in ghastly coils;

The walls are lofty, and white, and bare,

And moaning echoes roll ever there

Through the chamber where she toils.

No glitter of gold on her slender wrist,
Nor gem in her roseate ears;