The camp is gone, but Red Hoss mountain Rears its kindly head And looks down sort uv tenderly, Upon its cherished dead; And I reckon that, through all the years That little boy wich died Sleeps sweetly 'nd contentedly Upon the mountain-side; That the wild flowers of the summer time Bend down their heads to hear The footfall uv a little friend they Know not slumbers near; That the magpies on the sollum rocks Strange flutterin' shadders make. And the pines 'nd hemlocks wonder that The sleeper doesn't wake; That the mountain brook sings lonesomelike And loiters on its way Ez if it waited f'r a child To jine it in its play. ABU MIDJAN. "When Father Time swings round his scythe, Intomb me 'neath the bounteous vine, So that its juices, red and blithe, May cheer these thirsty bones of mine. "Elsewise with tears and bated breath Should I survey the life to be. But oh! How should I hail the death That brings that vinous grace to me!" So sung the dauntless Saracen, Whereat the Prophet-Chief ordains That, curst of Allah, loathed of men, The faithless one shall die in chains. But one vile Christian slave that lay A prisoner near that prisoner saith; "God willing, I will plant some day A vine where thou liest in death." Lo, over Abu Midjan's grave With purpling fruit a vine-tree grows; Where rots the martyred Christian slave Allah, and only Allah, knows! THE DYING YEAR. The year has been a tedious one-- A weary round of toil and sorrow, And, since it now at last is gone, We say farewell and hail the morrow. Yet o'er the wreck which time has wrought A sweet, consoling ray is shimmered-- The one but compensating thought That literary life has glimmered. Struggling with hunger and with cold The world contemptuously beheld 'er; The little thing was one year old-- But who'd have cared had she been elder? DEAD ROSES. He placed a rose in my nut-brown hair-- A deep red rose with a fragrant heart And said: "We'll set this day apart, So sunny, so wondrous fair." His face was full of a happy light, His voice was tender and low and sweet, The daisies and the violets grew at our feet-- Alas, for the coming of night! The rose is black and withered and dead! 'Tis hid in a tiny box away; The nut-brown hair is turning to gray, And the light of the day is fled! The light of the beautiful day is fled, Hush'd is the voice so sweet and low-- And I--ah, me! I loved him so-- And the daisies grow over his head! End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of John Smith, U.S.A., by Eugene Field