ed vines,
And over the poplars Venus shines,
And over the silent mill.
Ko-ling, ko-lang, kolinglelingle,
With ting-a-ling and jingle,
The cows come slowly home.

Let down the bars; let in the train
Of long-gone songs, and flowers, and rain;
For dear old times come back again,
When the cows come home.

_Agnes E. Mitchell._

Custer's Last Charge

Dead! Is it possible? He, the bold rider,
Custer, our hero, the first in the fight,
Charming the bullets of yore to fly wider,
Shunning our battle-king's ringlets of light!
Dead! our young chieftain, and dead all forsaken!
No one to tell us the way of his fall!
Slain in the desert, and never to waken,
Never, not even to victory's call!

Comrades, he's gone! but ye need not be grieving;
No, may my death be like his when I die!
No regrets wasted on words I am leaving,
Falling with brave men, and face to the sky.
Death's but a journey, the greatest must take it:
Fame is eternal, and better than all;
Gold though the bowl be, 'tis fate that must break it,
Glory can hallow the fragments that fall.

Proud for his fame that last day that he met them!
All the night long he had been on their track,
Scorning their traps and the men that had set them,
Wild for a charge that should never give back.
There, on the hilltop he halted and saw them--
Lodges all loosened and ready to fly;
Hurrying scouts with the tidings to awe them,
Told of his coming before he was nigh.

All the wide valley was full of their forces,
Gathered to cover the lodges' retreat,--
Warriors running in haste to their horses,
Thousands of enemies close to his feet!
Down in the valleys the ages had hollowed,
There lay the Sitting Bull's camp for a prey!
Numbers! What recked he? What recked those who followed?
Men who had fought ten to one ere that day?

Out swept the squadrons, the fated three hundred,
Into the battle-line steady and full;
Then down the hillside exultingly thundered
Into the hordes of the Old Sitting Bull!
Wild Ogalallah, Arapahoe, Cheyenne,
Wild Horse's braves, and the rest of their crew,
Shrank from that charge like a herd from a lion.
Then closed around the great hell of wild Sioux.

Right to their center he charged, and then, facing--
Hark to those yells and around them, Oh, see!
Over the hilltops the devils come racing,
Coming as fast as the waves of the sea!
Red was the circle of fire about them,
No hope of