THE GUERILLAS.

They preach the gospel of murder,
And pray for lust's kingdom to come.

"To saddle! to saddle! my brothers!
Look up to the rising sun,

And ask of the God who shines there
Whether deeds like these shall be done!

"Wherever the vandal cometh,

Press home to his heart with your steel; And when at his bosom you cannot,

Like the serpent, go strike at his heel!

"Through thicket and wood, go hunt him ;
Creep up to his camp-fire side;
And let ten of his corpses blacken
Where one of our brothers hath died.

"In his fainting, foot-sore marches,
In his flight from the stricken fray,
In the snare of the lonely ambush,
The debts we owe him pay.

"In God's hand alone is vengeance,
But he strikes with the hands of men;
And his blight would wither our manhood,
If we smite not the smiter again.

"By the graves where our fathers slumber,
By the shrines where our mothers prayed,

By our homes and hopes and freedom,
Let every man swear on his blade,

"That he will not sheathe nor stay it,
Till from point to hilt it glow
With the flush of Almighty vengeance,
In the blood of the felon foe."

317

They swore and the answering sunlight
Leaped red from their lifted swords;
And the hate in their hearts made echo
To the wrath in their burning words.

There's weeping in all New England,
And by Schuylkill's banks a knell ;
And the widows there and the orphans
How the oath was kept, can tell.*

THERE'S LIFE IN THE OLD LAND YET!

BY JAMES R. RANDALL.

By the blue Patapsco's billowy dash
The tyrant's war-shout comes,
Along with the cymbals' fitful clash,

And the growl of his sullen drums.

We hear it! we heed it with vengeful thrills,
And we shall not forgive or forget;

There's faith in the streams, there's hope in the hills,
There's life in the old land yet!

Minions! we sleep, but we are not dead;

We are crushed, we are scourged, we are scarred; We crouch - 't is to welcome the triumph tread Of the peerless BEAUREGARD.

Then woe to your vile, polluting horde,

When the Southern braves are met;

There's faith in the victor's stainless sword,
There's life in the old land yet!

*It may add something to the interest with which these stirring lines will be read, to know that they were composed within the walls of a Yankee Bastile. They reach us in manuscript, through the courtesy of a returned prisoner. - Richmond Examiner.

EPIGRAM.

Bigots! ye quell not the valiant mind
With the clank of an iron chain;

The spirit of Freedom sings in the wind,
O'er Merryman, Thomas, and Kane;

And we, though we smite not, are not thralls,
Are piling a gory debt;

While down by McHenry's dungeon-walls
There's life in the old land yet!

Our women have hung their harps away,
And they scowl on your brutal bands,
While the nimble poinard dares the day,
In their dear defiant hands.

They will strip their tresses to string our bows,
Ere the Northern sun is set;
There's faith in their unrelenting woes,

There's life in the old land yet!

There's life, though it throbbeth in silent veins, 'Tis vocal without noise;

It gushed o'er Manassas's solemn plains,

From the blood of the MARYLAND BOYS!

That blood shall cry aloud, and rise

With an everlasting threat;

319

By the death of the brave, by the God in the skies,
There's life in the old land yet!

EPIGRAM.

WHILST Butler plays his silly pranks,
And closes up New-Orleans' banks,

Our Stonewall Jackson, with more cunning,
Keeps Yankee Banks forever running.

Charleston Mercury.

THINKING OF THE SOLDIERS.

WE were sitting around the table,
Just a night or two ago,
In the little cosy parlor,

With the lamp-light burning low;
And the window-blinds half opened,
For the summer air to come,
And the painted curtains moving
Like a busy pendulum.

Of the tents beneath the moonlight,

Of the stirring tattoo's sound,

Of the soldier in his blanket,

In his blanket on the ground;

Of the icy winter coming,

Of the cold, bleak winds that blow,

And the soldier in his blanket,

In his blanket on the snow.

"STONEWALL JACKSON'S WAY." 321

Of the blight upon the heather,
And the frost upon the hill,
And the whistling, whistling ever,
And the never, never still;
Of the little leaflets falling,

With the sweetest, saddest sound,
And the soldier - oh! the soldier,
In his blanket on the ground.

Thus I lingered in my dreaming, --
In my dreaming far away,
Till the spirit's picture-painting
Seemed as vivid as the day;
And the moonlight faded softly
From the window opened wide,
And the faithful, faithful pointer
Nestled closer by my side.

And I knew that 'neath the starlight,
Though the chilly frosts may fall,
That the soldier will be dreaming,
Dreaming often of us all.

So I gave my spirit's painting

Just the breathing of a sound,

For the dreaming, dreaming soldier,
In his slumber on the ground.
November 24, 1861.

"STONEWALL JACKSON'S WAY."

COME, stack arms, men! Pile on the rails,
Stir up the camp-fire bright;

No matter if the canteen fails,
We'll make a roaring night.

Here Shenandoah brawls along,
There burly Blue Ridge echoes strong,