There fell a hush on all the flowers; but from a distant grove Burst forth the anthem of the birds in one grand peal of praise; As though the stern old Forest's heart had found its early love, And all of earth's sublimity was melted in its lays! Then, as the modest flower upturned her blue eyes to the sun, There fell a dewdrop on her breast as shaken from a tree; The lowliest of the sisterhood the godlike Crown had won; For hers it was to consecrate Truth's Immortality. The woodlands caught the airy fire upon their vernal plumes, And echoed back the waterfall's exultant, trilling laugh; And through the branches fell the light in slender golden blooms, To sanctify the Violet, the Soldier's Epitaph. I asked the General of the Mackerel Brigade, the other day, what kind of a flower he thought would spring above my head when I rested in a soldier's sepulchre? and he said "A cabbage!" my boy--he said "A cabbage!" Yours, inversely, ORPHEUS C. KERR. LETTER XLVIII. TREATING CHIEFLY OF A TERRIBLE PANIC WHICH BROKE OUT IN PARIS, BUT SUBSEQUENTLY PROVED TO BE ONLY A NATURAL EFFECT OF STRATEGY. WASHINGTON, D.C., June 1st, 1862. It is my belief--my solemn and affecting belief, my boy, that our once distracted country is destined to be such a great military power hereafter, that an American citizen will be distinguishable in any part of the world by his commission as a brigadier. Even Congressmen will answer to the command of "Charge--mileage!" and it is stated that sons of guns in every variety are already being born at the West--sons of "Pop" guns, my boy. The last time the General of the Mackerel Brigade was here, he was so much pleased with the high state of strategy developed at the War Office, that he visited all the bar-rooms in Washington, and ordered the tumblers to be at once illuminated. "Thunder!" says the general to Colonel Wobert Wobinson, of the Western Cavalry, as they were taking measures to prevent any possible mistake by seeing the enemy double, "this war is making great tacticians of the whole nation, and if I wanted my sons to become Napoleons, I'd put them into the War Office for a week. My sons! my sons!" says the general hysterically, motioning for a little more hot water, "why are you not here with me in glory, instead of remaining home there, like ripe plums on the parent tree." "Plums! plums!" says Colonel Wobinson, thoughtfully. "Ah! I see," says the colonel, pleasantly, "your sons are damsons." The general eyed the speaker with much severity of countenance, my boy, and says he: "If _you_ have any sons, my friend, they are probably fast young men, and take after their father--at the approach of the enemy." The general is rather proud of his sons, my boy, one of whom wrote the following, which he keeps pinned against the wall of his room:-- POOR PUSSY.