“I advanced!--that sentry, Doctor, was Elijah Ballantyne!-- First of all to fall on Monday, after we had formed the line: ‘Welcome, my old Sergeant, welcome! welcome by that countersign!’ And he pointed to the scar there, under this old cloak of mine! “As he grasped my hand, I shuddered, thinking only of the grave; But he smiled and pointed upward, with a bright and bloodless glaive; ‘That’s the way, sir, to head-quarters.’--‘What head-quarters?’ --‘Of the brave.’ ‘But the great tower?’--‘That was builded of the great deeds of the brave.’ “Then a sudden shame came o’er me at his uniform of light; At my own so old and tattered, and at his so new and bright; ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘you have forgotten the new uniform to-night,-- Hurry back, for you must be here at just twelve o’clock to-night!’ “And the next thing I remember, you were sitting there, and I-- Doctor--did you hear a footstep? Hark!--God bless you all! Good-bye! Doctor, please to give my musket and my knapsack when I die, To my son--my son that’s coming,--he won’t get here till I die! “Tell him his old father blessed him as he never did before,-- And to carry that old musket”--Hark! a knock is at the door!-- “Till the Union”--See! it opens!--“Father! Father! Speak once more!” “_Bless you!_”--gasped the old gray Sergeant, and he lay and said no more. [Illustration] [1] The troops during the war were accustomed to express their incredulity, when news could not be traced to a trustworthy source, by saying that the tidings had been received by “grapevine telegraph.” Hence a canard was called a “grapevine.”--EDITOR. [Illustration] THE “VARUNA.” (Sunk April 24, 1862.) BY GEORGE H. BOKER. Who has not heard of the dauntless _Varuna_? Who has not heard of the deeds she has done? Who shall not hear, while the brown Mississippi Rushes along from the snow to the sun? Crippled and leaking she entered the battle, Sinking and burning she fought through the fray; Crushed were her sides and the waves ran across her, Ere, like a death wounded lion at bay, Sternly she closed in the last fatal grapple, Then in her triumph moved grandly away. Five of the rebels, like satellites round her, Burned in her orbit of splendor and fear; One, like the pleiad of mystical story, Shot, terror-stricken, beyond her dread sphere. We who are waiting with crowns for the victors, Though we should offer the wealth of our store, Load the _Varuna_ from deck down to kelson, Still would be niggard, such tribute to pour On courage so boundless. It beggars possession,-- It knocks for just payment at heaven’s bright door!