No more shall the war-cry sever, Or the winding rivers be red; They banish our anger forever, When they laurel the graves of our dead. Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day; Love and tears for the Blue; Tears and love for the Gray. [Illustration] [Illustration] READY. BY PHOEBE CARY. Loaded with gallant soldiers, A boat shot in to the land, And lay at the right of Rodman’s Point, With her keel upon the sand. Lightly, gayly, they came to shore, And never a man afraid; When sudden the enemy opened fire From his deadly ambuscade. Each man fell flat on the bottom Of the boat; and the captain said: “If we lie here, we all are captured’ And the first who moves is dead!” Then out spoke a negro sailor, No slavish soul had he: “Somebody’s got to die, boys, And it might as well be me!” Firmly he rose, and fearlessly Stepped out into the tide; He pushed the vessel safely off, Then fell across her side: Fell, pierced by a dozen bullets, As the boat swung clear and free; But there wasn’t a man of them there that day Who was fitter to die than he! [Illustration] [Illustration] A GEORGIA VOLUNTEER. BY MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND. Far up the lonely mountain-side My wandering footsteps led; The moss lay thick beneath my feet, The pine sighed overhead. The trace of a dismantled fort Lay in the forest nave, And in the shadow near my path I saw a soldier’s grave. The bramble wrestled with the weed Upon the lowly mound, The simple head-board, rudely writ, Had rotted to the ground; I raised it with a reverent hand, From dust its words to clear; But time had blotted all but these: “A Georgia Volunteer.” I saw the toad and scaly snake From tangled covert start, And hide themselves among the weeds Above the dead man’s heart; But undisturbed, in sleep profound, Unheeding, there he lay; His coffin but the mountain soil, His shroud, Confederate gray. I heard the Shenandoah roll Along the vale below, I saw the Alleghanies rise Toward the realms of snow. The “Valley Campaign” rose to mind-- Its leader’s name--and then I knew the sleeper had been one Of Stonewall Jackson’s men. Yet whence he came, what lip shall say-- Whose tongue will ever tell What desolated hearths and hearts Have been because he fell? What sad-eyed maiden braids her hair-- Her hair which he held dear? One lock of which, perchance lies with The Georgia Volunteer!