And so, though no brazen-mouthed trump May herald my fame through the land, Still an heir to the purple and ermine.

Sceptered, and crowned, I shall stand A Queen in my own little province, With Peace at my royal right hand

FRANCIS M. FINCH.

Tis not strange, perhaps, that our great Civil
War called forth few poetical expressions which

survived it. Indeed, it called forth very few that made themselves widely felt, even while the conflict waged. And when peace came that glad time which people should most gladly sing-hardly a verse gave rhythmic greeting to which the popular heart made response. No sympathetic muse rose to the occasion. The poetry of Peace was dumb so far as any universal or representative utterance was concerned; or it spoke only in the hearts and through the hand-clasp of those whom war had long separated, met again in the joy of a great duty grandly done. Presently it breathed out and so sweetly that the world almost wept-in the blossoms on their graves for whom peace had but benedictions.

In the summer of 1867, two years or more after the smoke of battle had cleared away, this little news paragraph appeared in a metropolitan journal:

The women of Columbus, Mississippi, animated by nobler sentiments than are many of their sisters, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and the National soldiers.

Through the deed which these few lines recounted, the real poetry of Peace spoke, at last. We all heard it, and yet only one man of us all tenderly spelled out its syllables so that each should understand. When he had

done it, this is how it ran :

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.

By the flow of the inland river,

Whence the fleets of iron had fled,

Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver.

Asleep are the ranks of the dead :

Under the sod and the dew;

:

Waiting the judgment day;

Under the one, the Blue;

Under the other, the Gray.

These in the robings of glory,
Those in the g oom of defeat;
All with the battle blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet ;-
Under the sod and the dew;

Waiting the judgment day;
Under the laurel, the Blue;

Under the willow, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,

Lovingly laden with flowers,

Alike for the friend and the foe ;

Under the sod and the dew;

Waiting the judgment day;

Under the laurel, the Blue ;

Under the willow, the Gray,

So, with an equal splendor,
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,

On the blossoms blooming for all;-
Under the sod and the dew:
Waiting the judgment day;
Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

So, when the Summer calleth
On forest and fleld of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain;
Under the sod and the dew;

Waiting the judgment day;
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;
In the storm of the years, now fading,
No braver battle was won;

Under the sod and the dew;

Waiting the judgment day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.

No more shall the war cry sever,

Or the winding rivers be red;

They banish our anger forever

When they laurel the graves of our dead.
Under the sod and the dew:

Waiting the judgment day;
Love and tears for the Blue ;

Tears and love for the Gray.

How clear the meaning seemed! It found an echo all over our broad land. Crystallized in print, first in The Atlantic Monthly for September of the year named, this syllabled utterance was wafted on the white wings of the newspaper from one end of the country to the other. With the blossoms of every recurring May since then it has re-echoed itself, growing sweeter and sweeter year by year, its sympathy, and loving charity widening more and more until the strife is but a memory, and

"Dying, the sadness of funerai dirges,

Fading the musketry's roar;

Conflict's deep ocean in murmuring surges

Kisses the Present's still shore !"

This man through whom the poetry of Peace spoke so beautifully, was not widely known as Poesy's chosen medium of expression. He had rarely written for public. His name was in no wise familiar to newspaper Hundreds who had courted the muse for years and yet had never won so worthy recognition therefrom, had a wider reputation than had he.

perusa1. readers.

"The Blue and the Gray was penned by F. M. Finch, Esq., of Ithaca, N. Y.-a gentleman of fine mind and careful culture, recognized by all who know him as the possessor of rare literary gifts, but modest and retiring in the extreme.

Francis Miles Finch was born in Ithaca, about the year 1828. His father was then a merchant in the village