My darlings, this night, remember

All strangers are kith and kin-
This night when the dear Lord's Mother
Could find no room at the inn!"

Next morn from the colony belfry
Pealed gayly the Sunday chime,
And merrily forth the people

Flocked, keeping the Christmas time;
And the lady, with bright-eyed children
Behind her, their lips a-smile,

And the chief in his skins and wampum,
Came walking the narrow aisle.

Forthwith from the congregation
Broke fiercely a sullen cry;
"Out! Out! with the crafty red-skin!
Have at him! A spy! A spy!"
And quickly from belts leaped daggers,

And swords from their sheaths flashed bare,

And men from their seats defiant

Sprang, ready to slay him there.

But facing the crowd with courage
As calm as a knight of yore,
Stepped bravely the fair-browed woman
The thrust of the steel before;
And spake with a queenly gesture,

Her hand on the chief's brown breast:
"Ye dare not impeach my honor!
Ye dare not insult my guest!"

They dropped, at her word, their weapons,
Half-shamed as the lady smiled,

And told them the red man's story,

And showed them the red man's child;
And pledged them her broad plantations,
That never would such betray

The trust that a Christian woman
Had shown on a Christmas-Day!

AT LAST

From 'Colonial Ballads, Sonnets, and Other Verse.' Written by request for the
Ovation held in honor of Edgar Allan Poe, in the New York Academy of Music.

If he were here to-night-the strange rare poet,

Whose sphinx-like face no jestings could beguile— To meet the award at last, and feel and know it Securely his-how grand would be his smile!

How would the waves of wordless grief, that over
His haughty soul had swept through surging years,
Sink to a mystic calm, till he would cover

His proud pale face to hide the happy tears!

Who knows the secret of that strange existence-
That world within a world-how far, how near;
Like thought for closeness, like a star for distance-
Who knows? The conscious essence may be here.

If from its viewless bounds the soul has power
To free itself for some ethereal flight,
How strange to think the compensating hour
For all the tragic past, may be to-night!

To feel that, where the galling scoffs and curses
Of Fate fell heaviest on his blasted track,
There, Fame herself the spite of Fate reverses-
Might almost win the restless spirit back.

Though the stern Tuscan, exiled, desolated,
Lies mid Ravenna's marshes far away,
At Santa Croce, still his stone is fêted,
And Florence piles her violets there to-day!

Though broken-hearted the sad singer perished,
With woe outworn, amid the convent's gloom,
Yet how pathetic are the memories cherished,
When Rome keeps Tasso's birthday at his tomb!

So, though our poet sank beneath life's burden,
Benumbed and reckless through the crush of fate;
And though, as comes so oft, the yearned-for guerdon,
No longer yearned for, since it comes too late:

He is avenged to-night! No blur is shrouding
The flame his genius feeds: the wise, and brave,
And good, and young, and beautiful are crowding
Around, to scatter heart's-ease o'er his grave!

And his Virginia, like a tender mother

Who breathes above her errant boy no blame,
Stoops now to kiss his pallid lips, and smother
In pride her sorrow, as she names his name.

-Could he have only seen in vatic vision

The gorgeous pageant present to our eyes,
His soul had known one glimpse of joy elysian!
-Can we call no man happy till he dies?

GONE FORWARD*

From 'Cartoons,' 1875. Copyright, Little, Brown and Company, and used here by permission of the publishers.

I

Yes, "Let the tent be struck:" Victorious morning
Through every crevice flashes in a day
Magnificent beyond all earth's adorning:

The night is over; wherefore should he stay?
And wherefore should our voices choke to say,
"The General has gone forward"?

II

Life's foughten field not once beheld surrender;
But with superb endurance, present, past,
Our pure Commander, lofty, simple, tender,
Through good, through ill, held his high purpose fast,
Wearing his armor spotless,-till at last,

Death gave the final, "Forward."

*The poem is founded on one of the last sentences spoken by General Lee.

III

All hearts grew sudden palsied: Yet what said he

Thus summoned?-"Let the tent be struck!"-For when Did call of duty fail to find him ready

Nobly to do his work in sight of men,

For God's and for his country's sake-and then,
To watch, wait, or go forward?

IV

We will not weep-we dare not! Such a story
As his large life writes on the century's years,
Should crowd our bosoms with a flush of glory,
That manhood's type, supremest that appears
To-day, he shows the ages. Nay, no tears
Because he has gone forward!

V

Gone forward?-Whither?-Where the marshall'd legions, Christ's well-worn soldiers, from their conflicts cease;Where Faith's true Red-Cross knights repose in regions Thick-studded with the calm, white tents of peaceThither, right joyful to accept release,

The General has gone forward!

THE SHADE OF THE TREES*

From 'Cartoons.'

What are the thoughts that are stirring his breast?
What is the mystical vision he sees?
"Let us pass over the river and rest
Under the shade of the trees."

Has he grown sick of his toils and his tasks?
Sighs the worn spirit for respite or ease?
Is it a moment's cool halt that he asks

Under the shade of the trees?

*The poem is founded on the last words of "Stonewall" Jackson.

Is it the gurgle of waters whose flow

Oft-time has come to him, borne on the breeze,
Memory listens to, lapsing so low,

Under the shade of the trees?

Nay-though the rasp of the flesh was so sore,
Faith, that had yearnings far keener than these,
Saw the soft sheen of the Thitherward Shore,
Under the shade of the trees;-

Caught the high psalms of ecstatic delight-
Heard the harps harping, like soundings of seas—
Watched earth's assoiled ones walking in white
Under the shade of the trees.

O, was it strange he should pine for release,
Touched to the soul with such transports as these-
He who so needed the balsam of peace,

Under the shade of the trees?

Yea, it was noblest for him-it was best,

(Questioning naught of our Father's decrees), There to pass over the river and rest

Under the shade of the trees!*

THE HERO OF THE COMMUNE

"Garçon! You-you

From 'Cartoons.'

Snared along with this cursed crew?

(Only a child, and yet so bold,

Scarcely as much as ten years old!)

Do you hear? Do you know?

Why the gendarmes put you there, in the row,
You, with those Commune wretches tall,

With your face to the wall?”

*Mrs. Preston wrote a poem entitled "Jackson's Grave," and it is needless to say that probably no other event of the war inspired so many poets as the death of this great soldier.