Hot work; eh, Colonel, wasn't it? Ye mind that narrow front:

They called it the "Death-Angle!" Well, well, my lad, we

won't

Fight that old battle over now: I only meant to say

I really can't engage to come upon the twelfth of May.

How's Thompson? What! will he be there? Well, now I wan't to know!

The first man in the rebel works! they called him "Swearing

Joe."

A wild young fellow, sir, I fear the rascal was; but then— Well, short of heaven, there wa'n't a place he dursn't lead his men.

And Dick, you say, is coming too. And Billy? ah! it's

true

We buried him at Gettysburg: I mind the spot; do you? A little field below the hill,-it must be green this May; Perhaps that's why the fields about bring him to me today.

Well, well, excuse me, Colonel! but there are some things that drop

The tail-board out one's feelings; and the only way's to

stop.

So they want to see the old man; ah, the rascals! do they,

eh?

Well, I've business down in Boston about the twelfth of

May.

California's Greeting to Seward.

(1869.)

We know him well: no need of praise
Or bonfire from the windy hill.

To light to softer paths and ways

The world-worn man we honour still.

No need to quote those truths he spoke

That burned through years of war and shame,

While History carves with surer stroke
Across our map his noonday fame.

No need to bid him show the scars
Or blows dealt by the Scæan gate,
Who lived to pass its shattered bars,
And see the foe capitulate:

Who lived to turn his slower feet
Toward the western setting sun,

To see his harvest all complete,
His dream fulfilled, his duty done,

The one flag streaming from the pole,
The one faith borne from sea to sea:
For such a triumph, and such goal,
Poor must our human greeting be.

38

California's Greeting to Seward.

Ah! rather that the conscious land

In simpler ways salute the Man,-
The tall pines bowing where they stand,
The bared head of El Capitan,

The tumult of the waterfalls,

Pohono's kerchief in the breeze,
The waving from the rocky walls,
The stir and rustle of the trees;

Till, lapped in sunset skies of hope,
In sunset lands by sunset seas,

The Young World's Premier treads the slope
Of sunset years in calm and peace.

The Aged Stranger.

AN INCIDENT OF THE WAR.

"I WAS with Grant-" the stranger said;
Said the farmer, "Say no more,
But rest thee here at my cottage porch,
For thy feet are weary and sore."

"I was with Grant-" the stranger said; Said the farmer, "Nay, no more,— I prithee sit at my frugal board,

And eat of my humble store.

"How fares my boy,-my soldier boy, Of the old Ninth Army Corps?

I warrant he bore him gallantly

In the smoke and the battle's roar !"

"I know him not," said the aged man, "And, as I remarked before,

I was with Grant-" "Nay, nay, I know," Said the farmer, "say no more:

"He fell in battle,-I see, alas!

Thou'dst smooth these tidings o'er,

Nay, speak the truth, whatever it be,
Though it rend my bosom's core.

"How fell he ?—with his face to the foe,
Upholding the flag he bore?

Oh, say not that my boy disgraced
The uniform that he wore!"

"I cannot tell," said the aged man,
"And should have remarked before,
That I was with Grant,-in Illinois,-
Some three years before the war."

Then the farmer spake him never a word,
But beat with his fist full sore

That aged man, who had worked for Grant Some three years before the war.