LE MARAIS DU CYGNE.

Shame from our hearts
Unworthy arts,

The fraud designed, the purpose dark;

And smite away
The hands we lay

Profanely on the sacred ark.

To party claims,
And private aims,

Reveal that august face of Truth,
Whereto are given

The age of heaven,
The beauty of immortal youth.

So shall our voice
Of sovereign choice

Swell the deep bass of duty done,

And strike the key

Of time to be,

When God and man shall speak as one!

LE MARAIS DU CYGNE.

BLUSH as of roses

A

Where rose never grew!
Great drops on the bunch-grass,

But not of the dew!

A taint in the sweet air

For wild bees to shun!
A stain that shall never

Bleach out in the sun!

Back, steed of the prairies!

Sweet song-bird, fly back!
Wheel hither, bald vulture!

Gray wolf, call thy pack!

97

The foul human vultures
Have feasted and fled;
The wolves of the Border
Have crept from the dead.

From the hearths of their cabins,
The fields of their corn,
Unwarned and unweaponed,

The victims were torn,
By the whirlwind of murder
Swooped up and swept on
To the low, reedy fen-lands,
The Marsh of the Swan.

With a vain plea for mercy

No stout knee was crooked;
In the mouths of the rifles

Right manly they looked.
How paled the May sunshine,
O Marais du Cygne!
On death for the strong life,
On red grass for green!

In the homes of their rearing,
Yet warm with their lives,
Ye wait the dead only,

Poor children and wives!
Put out the red forge-fire,

The smith shall not come; Unyoke the brown oxen,

The ploughman lies dumb.

Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh,
O dreary death train,

With pressed lips as bloodless
As lips of the slain !
Kiss down the young cyelids,

Smooth down the gray hairs;
Let tears quench the curses

That burn through your prayers.

UF

BARBARA FRIETCHIE.

P from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep,

Fair as a garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain-wall, -

Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;

In her attic-window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.

Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced; the old flag met his sight.

"Halt!" the dust-brown ranks stood fast. "Fire!" out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.