The Bugle.

N a glittering glory of diamond dew,

IN

Where the tall white headstones gleam in a

row,

By the ivied church, Memorial Day,

With sheaves of lilies the mourners go.

All but one, and she sits alone,

A sad-eyed woman with locks of gray, And keeps a tryst of the vanished years

With the dear, dead lover who marched away.

Her whitened tresses were brown and bright,
Her cheeks were pink as a damask rose,
When he clasped her close in a last embrace,
While about them fluttered the orchard's snows.

The bugle called in the sunlit morn,

Bayonets glistened, and flags were gay,

He turned to wave her a loud adieu, –

The brave young lover who marched away.

To the silent city above the town,

With garlands laden, yet still they pass,

But she seeth only a curly head

And a broken sword in the trampled grass.

THE BUGLE.

She weaveth a wreath of heliotrope,
And heareth even the bugle play

That is mute with rust in the mouldered hand
Of the gallant lover who marched away.

The flowers have fallen about her feet,
Her lips are pale, and her fingers chill,
Far above the blue of the crystal sky
Her spirit follows the bugle still.

Its silvery melody leads her on,

Till far in a world of fadeless May

She plights the troth of her youth again

With the handsome lover who marched away.

There was never a shot that screamed and fell,
And never a bayonet-thrust went through
The dauntless breast of a soldier boy,
But it pierced the heart of a woman, too.
From end to end of the land they sit

By desolate hearths, alone and gray,
And wait for the ghastly bugle-call

And the soldier lover who marched away.

-Minna Irving.

Salute the Flag.

FF with your hat as the flag goes by!

OFF

And let the heart have its say:

You're man enough for a tear in your eye
That you will not wipe away.

You're man enough for a thrill that goes

To your very finger-tips

Ay! the lump just then in your throat that rose Spoke more than your parted lips.

Lift up the boy on your shoulder high,
And show him the faded shred;

Those stripes would be red as the sunset sky
If death could have dyed them red.

Off with your hat as the flag goes by!
Uncover the youngster's head;
Teach him to hold it holy and high
For the sake of its sacred dead.

-H. C. Bunner.

WAR.

I

Mar.

AM War. The upturned eyeballs of piled dead

men greet my eye,

And the sons of mothers perish, — and I laugh to see

them die,

Mine the demon lust for torture, mine the devil lust

for pain,

And there is to me no beauty like the pale brows of the slain !

But my voice calls forth the godlike from the sluggish souls at ease,

And the hands that toyed with ledgers scatter thunders 'round the seas;

And the lolling idler, wakening, measures up to God's own plan,

And the puling trifler greatens to the stature of a

man.

When I speak, the centuried towers of old cities melt in smoke,

And the fortressed ports sink reeling at my far-aimed thunder-stroke;

And an immemorial empire flings its last flag to the

breeze,

Sinking with its splintered navies down in the unpity

ing seas.

But the blind of sight awaken to an unimagined day, And the mean of soul grow conscious there is greatness in their clay;

Where my bugle voice goes pealing slaves grow heroes at its breath,

And the trembling coward rushes to the welcome arms of death.

Pagan, heathen and inhuman, devilish as the heart

of hell,

Wild as chaos, strong for ruin, clothed in hate unspeakable,

--

So they call me, - and I care not,- still I work my waste afar,

Heeding not your weeping mothers and your widows -I am War!

But your soft-boned men grow heroes when my flaming eyes they see,

And I teach your little people how supremely great

they be;

Yea, I tell them of the wideness of the soul's unfolded

plan

And the godlike stuff that's moulded in the making of

a man.

Ah, the godlike stuff that's moulded in the making of

a man!