Red rose and pallid lily, Pansy and daffodilly, Chrysanthemum and myrtle, Around the cross are clinging With wooing and sweet singing Of nightingale and turtle. The frozen Arctic splinter Shot from the bow of winter Will lose its power to harm us, While dreams of childhood’s Christmas, ’Twixt heaven and earth an isthmus, In nightly visions charm us. The angry gale may shatter Sweet Cashmere’s rose and scatter Its leaves o’er vale and river; The Christmas flower shall thrive As long as Love shall live, Forever and forever! TO THE SOLDIERS OF GENERAL DUMONT’S COMMAND.[E] NASHVILLE, TENN., 1862. Ye soldiers of the Union With holiest valor fired, To shield the land whose sacred cause Your father’s souls inspired-- Strike at yon black rebellion, Like a thunderbolt of dread, For the safety of the living And the memory of the dead! Bright Banner of the Union! By beauty’s fingers wrought, Around the world thy lesson Of glory has been taught. It tells of deathless battle-fields, To fame and freedom dear, And speaks of peace and happiness To man’s enraptured ear. Bright altar of the Union! Around thy spotless shrine, We swear disunion ne’er shall touch Thy offering divine! For our dead would sleep dishonored And the living have no hope, If in rebellion’s starless night Our land were doomed to grope. Charge, soldiers of the Union, In truth’s eternal might, Ye strike not for the lust of power, But liberty and right. The present and the Future plead-- The past full well ye know-- Strike home as your forefathers struck And Heaven will guide the blow! THE TWO GORDONS. Dedicated to Mrs. Anna M. D. Gordon, Medical Missionary at Mungeli, India. “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages; Thou thy worldly task has done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages. Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.” --General Gordon’s epitaph, from “Imogen’s Dirge,” in Cymbeline. General George Gordon, Khartoum, Egypt, January 26, 1885. Reverend E. M. Gordon, Hopkinsville, Ky., June 2, 1908. In the mystic land of Egypt, In the streets of old Khartoum, O’er the grave of martyred Gordon Does the rose of England bloom; By Mahdi, the false prophet, Borne down in hopeless strife, The Christian hero Gordon Laid down his priceless life.