Carcassonne.

"I'M growing old, I've sixty years;
I've labored all my life in vain.
In all that time of hopes and fears,
I've failed my dearest wish to gain.
I see full well that here below

Bliss unalloyed there is for none,
My prayer would else fulfilment know
Never have I seen Carcassonne !
Never have I seen Carcassonne !

"You spy the city from the hill,

It lies beyond the mountain blue;
And yet to reach it one must still
Five long and weary leagues pursue,
And, to return, as many more.

Had but the vintage plenteous grown – But, ah! the grape withheld its store.

I shall not look on Carcassonne !

I shall not look on Carcassonne !

They tell me every day is there

Not more or less than Sunday gay; In shining robes and garments fair The people walk upon their way. One gazes there on castle walls

As grand as those of Babylon,

A bishop and two generals!

What joy to dwell in Carcassonne !
Ah! might I but see Carcassonne !

"The vicar's right: he says that we

Are ever wayward, weak, and blind; He tells us in his homily

Ambition ruins all mankind;

Yet could I these two days have spent,
While still the autumn sweetly shone,
Ah, me! I might have died content
When I had looked on Carcassonne,
When I had looked on Carcassonne.

"Thy pardon, Father, I beseech,

In this my prayer if I offend;
One something sees beyond his reach
From childhood to his journey's end.
My wife, our little boy Aignan,

Have travelled even to Narbonne ;
My grandchild has seen Perpignan;
And I have not seen Carcassonne,
And I have not seen Carcassonne ! "

-

So crooned, one day, close by Limoux,
A peasant, double-bent with age.
"Rise up, my friend," said I ;

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I'll go upon this pilgrimage."

with you

We left, next morning, his abode,
But (Heaven forgive him!) half-way on

The old man died upon the road.

He never gazed on Carcassonne.

Each mortal has his Carcassonne.

GUSTAVE NADAUD.

Translated by JOHN R. THOMPSON.

Crossing the Rappahannock.

THEY leaped in the rocking shallops -
Ten offered where one could go -
And the breeze was alive with laughter,
Till the boatmen began to row.

Then the shore, where the rebels harbored,
Was fringed with a gush of flame,

And buzzing like bees o'er the water
The swarms of their bullets came.

In silence how dread and solemn,
With courage how grand and true,
Steadily, steadily onward

The line of the shallops drew.

Not a whisper! Each man was conscious
He stood in the sight of death,
So he bowed to the awful presence
And treasured his living breath.

'Twixt death in the air above them,
And death in the waves below,
Through ball and grape and shrapnel

They moved

my God, how slow!

And many a brave, stout fellow,

Who sprang in the boats with mirth, Ere they made that fatal crossing

Was a load of lifeless earth.

And many a brave, stout fellow,

Whose limbs with strength were rife,
Was torn and crushed and shattered-
A helpless wreck for life.

But yet the boats moved onward;

Through fire and lead they drove,

With the dark, still mass within them,

And the floating stars above.

They formed in line of battle

Not a man was out of place;

Then with levelled steel they hurled them

Straight in the rebels' face.

ANONYMOUS.

Roll-Call.

“CORPORAL GREEN!" the orderly cried.
"Here!" was the answer, loud and clear,
From the lips of the soldier who stood near ;
And "Here!" was the word the next replied.

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Cyrus Drew!"- then silence fell,

This time no answer followed the call; Only his rear man had seen him fall, Killed or wounded, he could not tell.

There they stood in the failing light,

These men of battle, with grave, dark looks,
As plain to be read as open books,

While slowly gathered the shades of night.

The fern on the hill-side was splashed with blood, And down in the corn, where the poppies grew, Were redder stains than the poppies knew,

And crimson-dyed was the river's flood.

For the foe had crossed from the other side
That day, in the face of a murderous fire
That swept them down in its terrible ire,
And their life-blood went to color the tide.

"Herbert Kline!" At the call there came

Two stalwart soldiers into the line,

Bearing between them this Herbert Kline, Wounded and bleeding, to answer his name.

"Ezra Kerr!"—and a voice answered "Here!" "Hiram Kerr !"- but no man replied.

They were brothers, these two; the sad wind sighed, And a shudder crept through the cornfield near.

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Ephraim Deane !"— then a soldier spoke :

"Deane carried our regiment's colors," he said; “Where our ensign was shot I left him dead, Just after the enemy wavered and broke.

"Close to the roadside his body lies;

I paused a moment and gave him drink; He murmured his mother's name, think, And death came with it and closed his eyes.”

'Twas a victory, yes, but it cost us dear;

For that company's roll, when called at night, Of a hundred men who went into the fight, Numbered but twenty that answered "Here!" NATHANIEL GRAHAM SHEPHERD.

Heroes.

THE winds that once the Argo bore

Have died by Neptune's ruined shrines,
And her hull is the drift of the deep-sea floor,
Though shaped of Pelion's tallest pines.
You may seek her crew on every isle
Fair in the foam of Egean seas,

But out of their rest no charm can wile
Jason and Orpheus and Hercules.

And Priam's wail is heard no more
By windy Ilion's sea-built walls;
Nor great Achilles, stained with gore,
Shouts "O ye gods, 't is Hector falls!"
On Ida's mount is the shining snow,

But Jove has gone from its brow away;

And red on the plain the poppies grow

Where the Greek and the Trojan fought that day.