MY Y

The Guardsman.

My brother Jim, he's in the regiment, an' he Says he's goin' down to fight

Soon as the soldiers ever start, an' gee!

Maybe they'll go to-night!

He's got a suit just like a p'liceman, too,

An' soldier cap an' gun.

He says they'll show the folks what they can do, He thinks it'll be fun!

But ma, she says she don't want him to go, 'Cause she's afraid, I guess.

An' so, las' night she was a-cryin' so

When Jim said that unless

She'd want to have a coward for a son

He'd have to go an' fight,

That seemed just like she never would get done, But cried an' cried all night.

An' sis told Jim that if they went away

She thought it was a shame,

An' cried when Jim said 'twas a lucky day
To show that we are game;

Sis liked Jim in his suit an' cap, an' so

I thought she wouldn't care,

THE GUARDSMAN.

But she took on an' cried just like as though
He's goin' to die down there!

But pa, you know he never said a word,

Just like he couldn't talk.

But just shook hands with Jim, like this, real hard,

An' went to take a walk;

An' bimeby I went out to try an' meet

The kids, you know, an' do

Something, an' pa was walkin' up the street,
An' he was cryin', too.

- Frank X. Finnegan.

The Voice of the Oregon.

You have called to me, my brothers, from your

far-off eastern sea,

To join with you, my brothers, to set a prostrate people free.

You have called to me, my brothers, to join to yours my might,

The slaughterers of our brethren with our armored hands to smite.

We have never met, my brothers, we mailed knights of the sea;

But there are no strangers, brothers, 'neath the Banner of the Free;

And though half a world's between us, and ten thousand leagues divide,

Our souls are intermingled, and our hearts are side by side.

Did you fail to call me, brothers, 'twere a fault without atone,

'Twas but just to me, my brothers, you should not

strike alone.

THE VOICE OF THE OREGON.

The brethren in the slaughter were no more thine than mine,

And the blows that visit vengeance must be mine as well as thine.

Through days of placid beauty, and nights when tempests toss,

I follow down the billows, my guide the Southern

Cross;

Past lands of quiet splendor, where pleasant waters

lave;

Past lands whose mountain ramparts fling back the crashing wave.

But I see no land of splendor, and I see no land of wrath;

I see before me only the ocean's heaving path,

And I plunge along that pathway like a giant to the

fray,

Who hath no stomach in him for aught that might delay.

I am nearing you, my brothers, for the western sea's

afar,

And the ray that lights my course now is the gleaming Northern Star.

I pray you wait, my brothers, for the air with war is rife,

And in courtesy of knighthood I claim to share the strife.

In the winds that blow about me the voices of the

dead

Are calling to me, brothers, to urge my topmost

speed.

In the foam that's upward flying in whirling wreaths of white,

The wraiths of murdered brothers beckon onward to the fight.

I am coming to you, brothers, wait but a little while, And on the thunders of our greeting shall the God of Vengeance smile;

And in the flashing and the crashing, the universe shall see

How we pay our debts of honor, we mailed knights

of the sea.

-H.J. D. Browne,