Compilation.

* * * * *

E.

The following is the rhapsody referred to by Mr. Butler: (The words to
be used were _Mosquito, Brigadier, Moon, Cathedral, Locomotive, Piano,
Mountain, Candle, Lemon, Worsted, Charity_, and _Success_).

A wounded soldier on the ground in helpless languor lay,
Unheeding in his weariness the tumult of the day;
In vain a pert _mosquito_ buzzed madly in his ear,
His thoughts were far away from earth--its sounds he could not hear;
Nor noted he the kindly glance with which his _brigadier_
Looked down upon his manly form when chance had brought him near.
It was a glorious autumn night on which the _moon_ looked down,
Calmly she looked and her fair face had neither grief nor frown.
Just as she gazed in other lands on some _cathedral_ dim,
Whose aisles resounded to the strains of dirges or of hymn.
But now with _locomotive_ speed the soldier's thoughts took wing:
Back to his home they bore him, and he heard his sisters sing--
Heard the softest-toned _piano_ touched by hands he used to love.
Was it home or was it heaven? Was that music from above?
Oh, for one place or the other! In his mountain air to die,
Once more upon his mother's breast, as in infancy, to lie!

The scene has changed. Where is he now? Not on the cold, damp ground.
Whence came this couch? and who are they who smiling stand around?
What friendly hands have borne him to his own free _mountain_ air?
And father, mother, sisters--every one of them is there.
Now gentle ministries of love may soothe him in his pain;
Water to cool his fevered lips he need not ask in vain.
His mother shades the _candle_ when she steals across the room;
A face like hers would radiant make a very desert's gloom.
The fragrant _lemon_ cools his thirst, pressed by his sister's hand--
Not one can do enough for him, the hero of their band.

Oh, happy, convalescing days! How full of pleasant pain!
How pleasant to take up the old, the dear old life again!
Now, sitting on the wooden bench before the cottage door,
How many times they make him tell the same old story o'er!
How he fought and how he fell; how he longed again to fight;
And how he would die fighting yet for the triumph of the right.
His good old mother sits all day so fondly by his side;
How can she give him up again--her first-born son, her pride?
His sisters with their _worsted_ his stockings