And there, when wearied Carnage faltered, He, foremost of the fallen, lay, While Night looked down with brow unaltered, And breathed the battle's dust away. There lying, sore from wounds untended, A vision crossed the starry gleam: The girl he loved beside him bended, And kissed him in his fever-dream. "Oh, love!" she cried, "you fled, to find me; I left with you the daisied vale; I turned from flutes that wailed behind me, To hear your trumpet's distant hail. "Your tender vows, your peaceful kisses, They scarce outlived the moment's breath; But now we clasp immortal blisses Of passion proved on brinks of Death! "No fate henceforward shall estrange her Who finds a heart more brave than fond; For Love, forsook this side of danger, Waits for the man who goes beyond!" THE PREACHER'S TRIAL. Sitting in my New-England study, as do so many of my tribe, to peruse the "Atlantic," I wonder whether, like its namesake, hospitable to many persons and things, it will for once let me write as well as read, and launch from my own calling a theme on its bosom. Our cloth has been worn so long in the world, I doubt how far it may suit with new fashions in fine company-parlors; but, seeing room is so cordially made for some of my brethren, as the Reverend Mr. Wilbur and "The Country Parson," to keep up the dignity of the profession, I am emboldened to come for a day with what the editorial piety may accept, "rejected article" as it might be elsewhere. The pulpit has lost something of its old sacredness in the general mind. There is little popular superstition to endure its former dictation. No exclusive incarnate theocracy in any particular persons is left, Leviticus and the Hebrew priesthood are gone. Church, ministry, and Sabbath are the regular targets taken out by our moral riflemen and archers, though so seldom to hit fair in the centre, that we may find ourselves, like spectators at the match, respecting the old targets more than we do the shots. Yet homilies and exporters are thought fair game. I have even heard splendid lecturers whose wit ran so low or who were so pushed for matter as to talk of what divinity-students wear round their necks, which seems a superficial consideration. The anciently venerated desk has two sharp enemies, the radical and the conservative, aiming their artillery from opposite sides, putting it somewhat in the position of the poor fish who is in danger from diverse classes of its fellow-creatures, one in the air and one in the water, and knows not whether to dive or rise to the surface, till it can conclude which is the more pleasant exit from life, to be hawked at or swallowed outright.