The author of this sweet old melody that touches the heart of all peoples closed his life in great sorrow and poverty. In the days of his youth and early manhood he was greatly beloved by all who knew him. He had multitudes of friends and in character was modest, unassuming, and almost as shy as a girl. He was happily married in 1854, in Pittsburg, but the bright prospects which he then had of a happy home life were eclipsed through his yielding to the appetite for strong drink. In 1860 his dissipation separated him from his family, and he settled in New York City, where for awhile he kept an old down-town grocery on the corner of Hester and Christy Streets. Some of his most famous songs were composed in the back room of that old grocery on pieces of brown wrapping-paper. Many of these songs that under the impelling force of his appetite for drink were sold for a few dollars, often brought hundreds and even thousands of dollars to the purchasers. On the 12th of January, 1864, he was injured by a fall, and died on the following day in Bellevue Hospital, friendless, and in abject poverty. This brilliant man whose melodies were sung by hundreds and thousands of tongues, and to whom a single publisher had paid more than twenty thousand dollars of royalties on his music, died lonely in a great city, and his body was carried back to his native State through the charity of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. His funeral, however, was attended by an immense concourse of people, comprising both the rich and poor of Pittsburg who remembered his brighter days, and who felt that the city was honored by his genius. Musicians attended in large force, and the songs they sang above his grave were his own melodies. [Illustration] [Illustration: _FRANCIS MILES FINCH_] _THE BLUE AND THE GRAY._ By the flow of the inland river, Whence the fleets of iron have fled, Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, Asleep are the ranks of the dead; Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Under the one the Blue; Under the other the Gray. These, in the robings of glory; Those, in the gloom of defeat; All, with the battle-blood gory, In the dusk of eternity meet; Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Under the laurel, the Blue; Under the willow, the Gray. From the silence of sorrowful hours The desolate mourners go, Lovingly laden with flowers Alike for the friend and foe; Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Under the roses, the Blue; Under the lilies, the Gray. So, with an equal splendor, The morning sun-rays fall, With a touch impartially tender, On the blossoms blooming for all; Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Broidered with gold, the Blue; Mellowed with gold, the Gray.