where the apple trees bloom!

II.

There's the cowslip, narcissus, and sweet mignonette,
The asters, verbenas, the fuschias; and yet,
As much as I love them in Summer array,
It's the white and the pink I dream of to-day,
And I walk 'neath the branches that just interlace
And shower their blossoms right down in my face
When the breeze that is laden with rarest perfume
Is wafted along where the apple trees bloom!

III.

With glad voices the birds as they flit to and fro
Are singing their songs where the pink and the snow
Of the orchard, bedecked in its garments so rare,
Is diffusing and sending its breath on the air;
And the rays of the sun sift through on the grass,
And the dew-drops that sparkle no jewels surpass!
In Springtime at evening, at morning, at noon,
How sweet is the scent of the apple trees' bloom!

IV.

And when Summer is gone, and Autumn has shed
It's soft, dreamy haze through the trees overhead,
On each spreading branch where blossoms now cling
The red and the gold to the fruit it will bring,
And stripe with a skill and give it that blush
Only Nature can paint with her delicate brush!
O when life ebbs away, then make me a tomb
Right out in the orchard, where the apple trees bloom!

CHICKAMAUGA.

To Chattanooga's vale, where flows the winding Tennessee,
And rugged Lookout sentinels heroic dust of sixty-three--
Where Chickamauga's gory field re-echoed to the cannon's roar,
And shot and shell through serried ranks a bloody pathway tore,
And mountain slope and wood and field were lumined with the blaze
Of musketry from Blue and Gray in those September days--
They come again, the gallant few, survivors of the fray,
Their breasts with hallowed memories filled, but passion passed away!

The fleeting years have silvered o'er the locks of those who live,
And turned to dust the sleeping ones who to their flag did give
The last drop of the crimson tide from ghastly wounds poured out
Amid the conflict's awful din and wild resounding shout;
And yet it seems but yesterday, or like a passing dream,
When marshaled on the mountain's side they saw the bayonets gleam,
As for a moment from the vale the battle's smoke was lifted,
And circling o'er the Blue and Gray in lurid clouds it drifted!

And now upon the blood-soaked ground once more they stand,
Where the unyielding "Rock of Chickamauga" held command,
And strewed the field with heaps of the assaulting Gray
Who dauntless rushed where lin