THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat

The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few;
On Fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,

And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;

No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;

No vision of the morrow's strife

The warrior's dream alarms.

No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,

The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are past;
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,

When many a vanished age hath flown,
The story how ye fell;

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,

Shall dim one ray of glory's light

That gilds your deathless tomb.

Theodore O'Hara.

The poem from which these stanzas are taken was written in 1847 to commemorate the Kentuckians who fell under Mexican fire at the battle of Buena Vista in February of that year. The Government has had the two quatrains in each verse here given cast in bronze and has placed them in large numbers in the National Cemeteries a tribute to the defenders of the flag who there await the last trump — a national requiem.

THE CONCORD HYMN.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired a shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;

And time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On the green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;

That memory may their deed redeem,
When like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare

To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson:

GEORGE WASHINGTON. 1732-1799.

He was invested with glory that shed a lustre all around him.

-Archbishop John Carroll.

He is never better supplied than when he seems destitute of everything; nor have his arms ever been so fatal to his enemies as at the very instant they thought they had crushed him forever.

First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.

-Henry Lee.

Oh, Washington! thou hero, patriot, sage, Friend of all climes and pride of every age. Thomas Paine.

Washington is the mightiest name of earth. Abraham Lincoln.

Washington is to my mind the purest figure in

history.

William E. Gladstone.

It may be truly said that never before did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great.

-Thomas Jefferson.

He was great as he was good; he was great because he was good.

- Edward Everett.

The name Washington is intimately blended with whatever belongs most essentially to the prosperity, the liberty, the free institutions and the renown of our country.

His integrity was the most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motive of interest, or consanguinity, or hatred being able to bias his dicision. He was, in every sense of the word, a wise, a good and a great man.

-Thomas Jefferson.

If Washington had one passion more strong than any other, it was love of country.

-Jared Sparks.

Just honor to Washington can only be rendered by observing his precepts and imitating his example.

-Robert C. Winthrop.

His precepts and examples speak to us from the grave with a paternal appeal; and his name -by all revered forms a universal tie of brotherhood a watchword of our Union.

- John Fiske.