But somehow it's hard, just at present,
To think of you young, fresh and gay.
"Oh, what a ridiculous bonnet!
Yet 'neath it 's a pretty young head.
Ugh! here's a cadaverous creature!

He must have been raised from the dead!" "My brother! my dear martyred brother! From prison returned but to die!

And here is his face fresh and boyish
As when he bade mother and I

"Farewell, on that sunny spring morning
His regiment left-oh! the wild,
Wild grief of those partings in war-time,
How little you know of it, child!"
Ah! now the young vandal is rifling
My bureau-she shakes out a dress
I folded away in the sixties.
“Miss Olive, this robe, I confess,

"Is pretty and quaint; why, how sylphlike
You were in those far-off old days!
A faded bouquet-and pinned on it,
A note. Do you know I've a craze
For romance, so I'll read this—excuse me,
From 'Fred,' to be worn at the ball;
He calls you his sweetheart, his Olive,
The very 'queen rose of them all.'
"Um-m! tender, poetic-forgive me,
I cannot help laughing-so queer
To read this old love note so gushing
And you old and gray standing here-
Ah! here comes my Fred-I must scamper
It makes me feel sad, I must own,
To think of your fallen young hero,
And you in your old age alone."

She's gone with her merry young lover.
I gather my relics again,-
The faded bouquet and the love note,
I press back the tears but in vain.
For out of the mists comes my lover,
My Fred, soul of honor and truth.
A moment my rapt eyes behold him,
Strong, fresh in his radiant youth--

Then dark yawns a chasm between us,
Beyond is a moonlighted plain

With Fred, my own darling, low lying
'Mong heaps of the wounded and slain.

BARCAROLLE.-BEN WOOD DAVIS.

A RYTHMICAL RECITATION FOR MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT.

The gondolier, in music clear,
His lady-love is serenading

From his gondola, while his soft guitar
In tinkling sweetness is persuading
The sleeping maiden, with visions laden,
To quickly rise and hear his sighs,
While night and fall of ripples, all
Make music more than musical.

A wake, my love! though stars above
In witchery are peeping,

Far more I prize the starry eyes

That now are veiled in sleeping.

And while he sings, how sweetly rings
The melody; now rises firmer
The barcarolle; and now a lull

As soft as an Æolian murmur;

Now madly sighing with love, now dying,
And soft and low and sweet and slow,
And low again; 'tis almost pain

To hear the gondolier's refrain,

Awake, my love! though stars above

In witchery are peeping,

Far more I prize the starry eyes

That now are veiled in sleeping.

She wakes, she hears; her ravished ears
Are drinking all her lover's praises;
They send a start to her vain heart;

With noiseless steps she steals, and raises
The curtain slyly, and peeping shyly,
The teasing sprite hides with delight,
Smiles at the strain with mock disdain,
And pouts her lips and smiles again.

Awake, my love! though stars above
In witchery are peeping,

Far more I prize the starry eyes
That now are veiled in sleeping.

OUR RANKS ARE GETTING THIN.*-LOUIS EISENBEIS. Comrades, our ranks are getting thin, our numbers less and less,

Do you marvel that a falling tear should utter its distress?

No wonder, as we look along our thinning ranks to-day,
Our silent tears should speak the words our lips refuse to

say.

As each Memorial Day recurs and the muster-roll is read, There steals along our shattered ranks weird whispers of the dead;

We miss their genial faces, boys, yet still on memory's scroll They live, aye, shall forever live, engraven on the soul.

The warm grasp of each friendly hand, now cold in icy death,

Has left behind a magic spell throbbing with living breath. Though hushed the voice, though stilled the heart by death's relentless thrust,

The lustre of heroic deeds survives the crumbling dust.

A name is called, there's no response to greet the listening

ear;

No voice is heard, but a solemn hush proclaims the sad "Not here!"

A soldier of the Union Guard, undaunted in the strife,
He stood beneath the Union stars, and vowed to serve for

life.

Nobly he served the allotted time, a hero, brave and true;
At last he lays his armor down beneath the starry blue.

E'en so my comrades, one by one, their faces disappear;
One by one they step aside, we bear them to the rear.
We lay upon their coffined forms the flag they loved so well,
And sadly march with muffled drum and dirge of funeral
knell.

We stand around the open grave with saddened hearts and mute,

And waft a soldier's last "Farewell," a requiem salute.

And thus our ranks are growing thin. Why, we almost half incline

To think some unseen foe has charged upon our shattered line.

'Tis true, we hear no cannon's roar, we see no glittering steel, And yet how silently they fall, as though on battle field.

*This very realistic poem is especially adapted for Decoration Day exercises, but by a slight adaptation (omitting, perhaps, the last stanza) it can be made equally suitable for post-room or camp-fire.

Time plants his batteries high and low to sweep the embat tled plain,

And points his noiseless, shotted guns with strange unerring

aim.

Hark, how his balls go whistling by, his bombs explode so

nigh

Ah, boys, who'll be next to fall? Perchance 'tis you or I.

Still, we recall the by-gone days, when the trumpet blast of

war

Echoed o'er the slumbering hills, shook by the cannon's roar, How, with eager, hastening step, you were not the men to lag, You were ready, without faltering, to protect the nation's flag. You were ready, life in hand, on your country's altar laid, Home and loved ones, fame and fortune, "Country first," you nobly said.

Are you ready still to say, "Be it life or be it death,

I'm for truth and right and union till shall end my transient breath."

Attention, comrades! fall in quickly. We are yet in rank and file.

We are not discharged from duty, just on furlough for awhile; The bugle and the tapping drum, the sword and bayonet, The knapsack and the old canteen set us ablaze e'en yet.

On! on to Richmond, boys! Hurrah! let not a soldier lag. Hark! do you hear the rebel guns? Up with the Union flag! But halt! what's this? My limbs are weak; pain strikes me here and there;

My breath is short; my joints are stiff-comrades bring me a chair.

Ah, yes; how strange! I see it now. My memory comes again.

I thought 't was eighteen sixty-one, but lo, 'tis years since

then.

I thought I was a boy again, as thirty years ago,

But stiffened limbs and fading sight, locks whitening as the

snow,

All tell me we are growing old and soon must face about And wait to hear the stern command, "Tis time to muster

out!"

Then comrades, are we ready for the final grand review? Are you ready, as in sixty-one-you saved the starry blue? When the Great Commander's voice shall announce the solemn halt,

When we stack our trusty muskets, when we meet the last assault,

May we have an honored entrance where the clang and din

of war

And the weary march and battle shall deplete our ranks no

more.

Then kindly strew sweet flowers of spring on the little grassy mound

Where sleeps the Union soldier in his silent camping ground. Plant there the sweet forget-me-not that, kissed by the dewy dawn,

Shall breathe a living fragrance there when we at last are gone.

WAYBACK TEMPERANCE LECTURE.*
CHARLES R. RISLEY.

I have been requested to repeat a temperance lecture delivered in the neighboring town of Wayback a few evenings since.

As I entered the hall that evening I noticed that there were a good many people out; that is--there didn't seem to be many of them in. My audience was small but it was very respectable; one of the most respectable people in that town is the janitor of the hall. One of my hearers was a good Samaritan from the next county, who drove ten miles on purpose to hear my lecture. To do this he must have had a very good horse; in fact a good Samaritan and a good horse are identical; they both stop at the sound of woe. I spoke for an hour and ten minutes and gave perfect satisfaction. In fact some of my audience were so enthusiastic about it, that they told me they would have been just as well satisfied if I had spoken only the ten minutes.

After the lecture I walked home behind two ladies and overheard one of them say, "Wasn't that lecture splendid?" "Yes," said the other," but what a miserable looking wretch the lecturer was."

The subject of my lecture was "The Liquor Question." What is the liquor question? The liquor ques tion briefly stated is this: Will you take something?

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*Written expressly for this Collection. "My Wife's Husband," a humorous recitation by the same author will be found in “100 Choice Selections, No. 34."