The wife whose babe first smiled that day,
The fair fond bride of yestereve,

And aged sire and matron gray,
Saw the loved warriors haste away,

And deemed it sin to grieve.

Already had the strife begun ;

Already blood on Concord's plain Along the springing grass had run, And blood had flowed at Lexington, Like brooks of April rain.

That death-stain on the vernal sward

Hallowed to freedom all the shore; In fragments fell the yoke abhorred The footstep of a foreign lord

Profaned the soil no more.

THE LIVING LOST.

MATRON the children of whose love,

Each to his grave, in youth have passed, And now the mould is heaped above

The dearest and the last!

Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil
Before the wedding flowers are pale!
Ye deem the human heart endures
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener woe,
Of which the sufferers never speak,
Nor to the world's cold pity show

The tears that scald the cheek,
Wrung from their eyelids by the shame
And guilt of those they shrink to name,
Whom once they loved, with cheerful will,
And love, though fallen and branded, still.

Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead,

Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve; And graceful are the tears ye shed,

And honored ye who grieve.

The praise of those who sleep in earth, The pleasant memory of their worth, The hope to meet when life is past, Shall heal the tortured mind at last.

But ye, who for the living lost

That agony in secret bear,

Who shall with soothing words accost
The strength of your despair?
Grief for your sake is scorn for them
Whom ye lament and all condemn ;
And o'er the world of spirits lies

A gloom from which ye turn your eyes.

THE STRANGE LADY.

THE summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by,

As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool clear sky;

Young Albert, in the forest's edge, has heard a rustling sound,

An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon the ground.

A lovely woman from the wood comes suddenly

in sight;

Her merry eye is full and black, her cheek is brown and bright;

She wears a tunic of the blue, her belt with beads

is strung,

And yet she speaks in gentle tones, and in the English tongue.

"It was an idle bolt I sent, against the villain

crow;

Fair sir, I fear it harmed thy hand; beshrew my

erring bow!"

"Ah! would that bolt had not been spent, then, lady, might I wear

A lasting token on my hand of one so passing fair!"

"Thou art a flatterer like the rest, but wouldst thou take with me

A day of hunting in the wilds, beneath the greenwood tree,

I know where most the pheasants feed, and where the red-deer herd,

And thou shouldst chase the nobler game, and I bring down the bird."

Now Albert in her quiver lays the arrow in its

place,

And wonders as he gazes on the beauty of her face:

"Those hunting-grounds are far away, and, lady, 'twere not meet

That night, amid the wilderness, should overtake thy feet."

"Heed not the night, a summer lodge amid the wild is mine,

Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, 'tis mantled by

the vine;