FREDERICKSBURG.

[December 13, 1862.]

THE increasing moonlight drifts across my bed,
And on the churchyard by the road, I know
It falls as white and noiselessly as snow.
'Twas such a night two weary summers fled;
The stars, as now, were waning overhead.
Listen! Again the shrill-lipped bugles blow
Where the swift currents of the river flow
Past Fredericksburg: far off the heavens are red
With sudden conflagration: on yon height,
Linstock in hand, the gunners hold their breath:
A signal-rocket pierces the dense night,
Flings its spent stars upon the town beneath :
Hark! the artillery massing on the right,

Hark! the black squadrons wheeling down to
Death!

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

KILLED AT FREDERICKSBURG.

FRED MASON came beside my fire,

But turned with light, familiar warning: "Sleep, though your bed be cold and damp, And I will meet you in the morning."

For fraught with doubt the day had passed,
And, noiselessly at dusk parading,

We slept upon the frozen hills

That shook with Burnside's cannonading.

While through the gloom our long black guns
Their messages of death deliver,

The word runs low from lip to lip:

"At break of day we cross the river."

The long night passed; ten thousand eyes
Turned to the wintry heaven o'er them;
Then left their painful sleep behind,

To meet the dreamless sleep before them.

From bluff to bluff the batteries growled, And all day long we faced their thunder,But others, in their time, shall tell

The story of that bloody blunder.

When Fredericksburg was won at last,
Just where the bugle sounded "Forward!"
Fred Mason lay, his breast in front,

His whitened features looking Nor'ward.

His fingers in the trampled soil,

Convulsed and blue, were tightly clinching; His dead eyes, staring to the sky,

Yet stared defiant and unflinching.

Dead eyes!-when last they flashed in mine, Our hearts were lighter than a feather:

Well, God forgive me! but I wish

We both had fallen there together.

Enough for thee, one soldier mourns

A friend misfortune never altered, A lip of cheer, a soul of fire,

A head and hand that never faltered.

In peace, below the blood-stained height,
This waving wood, this flowing river,
Shall lull at last thy restless brain
To sleep forever and forever.

Above thy breast the quail shall glide,
The rabbit cull his dewy clover;
And long as heaven's wind shall blow,
The holly bend thy slumber over.

Round rocky isle and laurelled banks
The Rappahannock, softly dashing,
Sound sweet as on the fatal morn

When last we listened to its plashing.
Here shall the solemn cricket slide
And chant amid thy grassy cover;
And Nature, like a maiden, watch
The turf that wraps her daring lover.
Sleep on, sleep on; no more this vale
Wakes to the signal's hellish warning:
Sleep, though your bed be cold and damp,
And I will meet you in the morning.'

CHAUNCEY HICKOX,

CHRISTMAS NIGHT OF '62.

[In the Army of Northern Virginia.]
THE wintry blast goes wailing by,
The snow is falling overhead;
I hear the lonely sentry's tread,
And distant watch-fires light the sky.

Dim forms go flitting through the gloom;
The soldiers cluster 'round the blaze,
To talk of other Christmas days,
And softly speak of home and home.

My sabre swinging overhead

Gleams in the watch-fire's fitful glow, While fiercely drives the blinding snow, And memory leads me to the dead. My thoughts go wandering to and fro, Vibrating 'twixt the Now and Then ; I see the low-brow'd home agen, The old hall wreathed with mistletoe.

And sweetly from the far-off years
Comes borne the laughter faint and low,
The voices of the Long Ago!

My eyes are wet with tender tears.

I feel agen the mother-kiss,

I see agen the glad surprise

That lightened up the tranquil eyes

And brimmed them o'er with tears of bliss,

As, rushing from the old hall-door,
She fondly clasp'd her wayward boy-
Her face all radiant with the joy
She felt to see him home once more.

My sabre swinging on the bough

Gleams in the watch-fire's fitful glow, While fiercely drives the blinding snow Aslant upon my sadden'd brow.

Those cherished faces all are gone!
Asleep within the quiet graves

Where lies the snow in drifting waves,-
And I am sitting here alone.

There's not a comrade here to-night
But knows that lov'd ones far away
On bended knees this night will pray:
"God bring our darling from the fight."

But there are none to wish me back,
For me no yearning prayers arise,
The lips are mute and closed the eyes—
My home is in the bivouac.

W. GORDON MACCABE.

BOSTON HYMN.

[Read at the Emancipation Meeting in Boston, January 1, 1863.]

THE word of the Lord by night

To the watching Pilgrims came,
As they sat by the sea-side,

And filled their hearts with flame.

God said, I am tired of kings,

I suffer them no more;

Up to my ear the morning brings
The outrage of the poor.

Think ye I made this ball

A field of havoc and war,
Where tyrants great and tyrants small
Might harry the weak and poor?

My angel, his name is Freedom,—
Choose him to be your king;
He shall cut pathways east and west,
And fend you with his wing.

Lo! I uncover the land

Which I hid of old time in the West,
As the sculptor uncovers his statue
When he has wrought his best;

I show Columbia, of the rocks
Which dip their foot in the seas
And soar to the air-borne flocks
Of clouds and the boreal fleece.

I will divide my goods;

Call in the wretch and slave:
None shall rule but the humble,

And none but Toil shall have.