"I visit every humble roof;
I mingle with the low:
Only upon the highest peaks
My blessings fall in snow;
Until, in tricklings of the stream
And drainings of the lea,
My unspent bounty comes at last

To mingle with the sea."

And thus all night, above the wind,
I heard the welcome rain,-

A fusillade upon the roof,

A tattoo on the pane:

The keyhole piped; the chimney-top
A warlike trumpet blew ;

But, mingling with these sounds of strife,
This hymn of peace stole through.

The Old Major Explains.

(RE-UNION, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, 12TH MAY 1871.)

WELL, you see, the fact is, Colonel, I don't know as I can

come:

For the farm is not half planted, and there's work to do at

home;

And my leg is getting troublesome,-it laid me up last Fall, And the doctors, they have cut and hacked, and never found the ball.

And then, for an old man like me, it's not exactly right,
This kind o' playing soldier with no enemy in sight.
"The Union," that was well enough way up to '66;
But this "Re-Union," maybe now it's mixed with politics?

No? Well, you understand it best; but then, you see, my lad,

I'm deacon now, and some might think that the example's bad.

And week from next is Conference. . . . You said the twelfth

of May?

Why, that's the day we broke their line at Spottsylvan-i-a !

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 thenWell, 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.