THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE.

Three Hundred Thousand More.

WE are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred

thousand more,

From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore;

We leave our ploughs and workshops, our wives and children dear,

With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent

tear;

We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before: We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

If you look across the hilltops that meet the northern sky,

Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may

descry;

And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil

aside,

And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in

pride,

And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave

music pour:

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

If you look all up our valleys where the growing harvests shine,

You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into

line;

And children from their mothers' knees are pulling at the weeds,

And learning how to reap and sow against their country's needs;

And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door;

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

You have called us, and we're coming, by Richmond's bloody tide

To lay us down, for Freedom's sake, our brothers' bones beside,

Or from foul treason's savage grasp to wrench the murderous blade,

And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to

parade.

Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone

before:

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred

thousand more!

-James Gibbons.

CAVALRY SONG.

Cavalry Song.

OUR good steeds snuff the evening air,

Our pulses with their purpose tingle;

The foeman's fires are twinkling there;

He leaps to hear our sabres jingle!
Halt!

Each carbine sends its whizzing ball:
Now, cling! clang! forward all,
Into the fight!

Dash on beneath the smoking dome:
Through level lightnings gallop nearer!
One look to Heaven! No thoughts of home:
The guidons that we bear are dearer.
Charge!

Cling clang! forward all!

Heaven help those whose horses fall!
Cut left and right!

They flee before our fierce attack!

They fall! they spread in broken surges ! Now, comrades, bear our wounded back, And leave the foeman to his dirges.

Wheel!

The bugles sound the swift recall:
Cling! clang! backward all!

Home, and good night!

-Edmund Clarence Stedman.

MARCHING STILL.

Marching Still.

HE is old, and bent, and wrinkled,

SHE

In her rocker in the sun,

And the thick, gray, woollen stocking

That she knits is never done.
She will ask the news of battle
If you pass her when you will,
For to her the troops are marching,
Marching still.

Seven tall sons about her growing
Cheered the widowed mother's soul;
One by one they kissed and left her
When the drums began to roll.
They are buried in the trenches,
They are bleaching on the hill;
But to her the boys are marching,
Marching still.

She was knitting in the corner
When the fatal news was read,
How the last and youngest perished, –
And the letter, ending, said:
"I am writing on my knapsack
By the road, with borrowed quill,