winds play o'er the Rapidan;
There only echo notes of glee,
Where gleamed a mighty army's van!

Fair Chattanooga's wooded slope
With summer airs is lightly stirred,
And many a heart is warm with hope
Where once the deep-mouthed gun was heard.

The blue Potomac stainless rolls,
And Mission Ridge is gemmed with fern;
On many a height sleep gallant souls,
And still the blooming years return.

Thank God! unseen to outward eye,
But felt in every freeman's breast,
From graves where fallen comrades lie
Ascends at Nature's wise behest,

With springing grass and blossoms new,
A prayer to bless the nation's life,
To freedom's flower give brighter hue,
And hide the awful stains of strife.

O, Boys in Blue, we turn to you,
The scarred and mangled who survive;
No more we meet in grand review,
But all the arts of freedom thrive.

Still glows the jewel in its shrine,
Won where the James now tranquil rolls;
Its wealth for all, the glory thine,
O memory of heroic souls!

GEORGE BANCROFT GRIFFITH.

* * * * *

THE CAUSE OF THE SOUTH.

FROM "SENTINEL SONGS."

The fallen cause still waits,--
Its bard has not come yet,
His song--through one of to-morrow's gates
Shall shine--but never set.

But when he comes--he'll sweep
A harp with tears all stringed,
And the very notes he strikes will weep,
As they come, from his hand, woe-winged.

Ah! grand shall be his strain,
And his songs shall fill all climes,
And the Rebels shall rise and march again
Down the lines of his glorious rhymes.

And through his verse shall gleam
The swords that flashed in vain,
And the men who wore the gray shall seem
To be marshalling again.

But hush! between his words
Peer faces sad and pale,
And you hear the sound of broken chords
Beat through the poet's wail.

Through his verse the orphans cry--
The terrible undertone!
And the father's curse and the mother's sigh,
And the desolate young wife's moan.

* * * * *

I sing, with a voice too low
To be heard beyond to-day,
In minor keys of my people's woe;
And my songs pass away.

To-morrow hears them not--
To-morrow belongs to fame:
My songs--like the birds'--will be forgot,
And forgotten shall be my name.

And yet who knows! betimes