the strained and still attention of the little group
around him as he steps into the light of the fire! Hear him!
"I am dying, Egypt, dying!
Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
And the dark Plutonian shadows
Gather on the evening blast.
Let thine arms, O Queen, support me,
Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear;
Listen to the great heart secrets--
Thou, and thou alone, must hear.
"I am dying, Egypt, dying!
Hark! the insulting foeman's cry.
They are coming! quick! my falchion!!
Let me front them ere I die.
Ah! no more amid the battle
Shall my heart exulting swell--
Isis and Osiris guard thee--
Cleopatra! Rome! Farewell!"
[Illustration: THE POET OF OUR MESS.]
"Good!" "Bully!" "Go ahead, Jack!" "Give us some more, old fellow!" And
he generally did, much to everybody's satisfaction. We all loved Jack,
_the Poet_ of our mess. He sleeps, his battles o'er, in Hollywood.
The _Singing_ man generally put in towards the last, and sung us to bed.
He was generally a diminutive man, with a sweet voice and a sweetheart
at home. His songs had in them rosy lips, blue eyes, golden hair, pearly
teeth, and all that sort of thing. Of course he would sing some good
rollicking songs, in order to give all a chance. And so, with hearty
chorus, "Three times around went she," "Virginia, Virginia, the Land of
the Free," "No surrender," "Lula, Lula, Lula is gone," "John Brown's
Body," with many variations, "Dixie," "The Bonny Blue Flag," "Farewell
to the Star-Spangled Banner," "Hail Columbia," with immense variations,
and "Maryland, My Maryland," till about the third year of the war, when
we began to think Maryland had "breathed and burned" long enough, and
ought to "come." What part of her did come was _first-class_. How the
woods did ring with song! There were patriotic songs, romantic and love
songs, sarcastic, comic, and war songs, pirates' glees, plantation
melodies, lullabies, good old hymn tunes, anthems, Sunday-school songs,
and everything but vulgar and obscene songs; these were scarcely ever
heard, and were nowhere in the army well received or encouraged.
The recruit--our latest acquisition--was _so_ interesting. His nice
clean clothes, new hat, new shoes, trimming on his shirt front, letters
and cross-guns on his hat, new knife for all the fellows to borrow, nice
comb for general use, nice little glass to shave by, good smoking
tob
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