Ye slew a sick man in his bed; ye slew with hands accursed A mother nursing, and her blood fell on the babe she nursed; By their own doors our kinsmen fell, and perished in the strife;

But as we hold a hireling's cheap, and dear a freeman's life, By Tanner-Brook and Lincoln-Bridge, before the shut of sun, We took the recompense we claimed,-a score for every one!

Hark! from the town a trumpet! The barges at the wharf Are crowded with the living freight, and now they're pushing off;

With clash and glitter, trump and drum, in all its bright ar

ray,

Behold the splendid sacrifice move slowly o'er the bay!
And still and still the barges fill, and still across the deep,
Like thunder-clouds along the sky, the hostile transports

sweep;

And now they're forming at the Point, and now the lines advance;

We see beneath the sultry sun their polished bayonets glance; We hear a-near the throbbing drum, the bugle challenge ring;

Quick bursts and loud the flashing cloud, and rolls from wing to wing.

But on the height our bulwark stands, tremendous in its gloom,

As sullen as a tropic sky, and silent as a tomb;

And so we waited till we saw at scarce ten rifles' length

The old vindictive Saxon spite, in all its stubborn strength; When sudden, flash on flash, around the jagged ramparts burst,

From every gun the livid light, upon the foe accursed.

Then quailed a monarch's might before a freeborn people's ire

Then drank the sward the veteran's life, where swept the yeoman's fire;

Then, staggered by the shot, we saw their serried columns reel

And fall, as falls the bearded rye beneath the reaper's steel; And then arose a mighty shout, that might have waked the

dead,

"Hurrah! they run-the field is won! Hurrah! the foe is fled!"

And every man has dropped his gun to clutch a neighbor's

hand,

As his heart keeps praying all the while for home and native land.

Thrice on that day we stood the shock of thrice a thousand foes,

And thrice that day within our lines the shout of victory

rose;

And though our swift fire slackened then, and, reddening in the skies,

We saw from Charlestown's roofs and walls the flamy columns rise;

Yet while we had a cartridge left, we still maintained the fight,

Nor gained the foe one foot of ground upon that blood-stained height.

What though for us no laurels bloom, nor o'er the nameless brave

No sculptured trophy, scroll, nor hatch, records a warrior's grave?

What though the day to us was lost? Upon the deathless page

The everlasting charter stands, for every land and age!

For man hath broke his felon bonds and cast them in the dust,

And claimed his heritage divine, and justified his trust; While through his rifted prison-bars the hues of freedom pour,

O'er every nation, race, and clime, on every sea and shore, Such glories as the patriarch viewed, when, 'mid the darkest skies,

He saw above the ruined world the bow of promise rise.

THE AMERICAN FLAG.-H. W. BEECHER.

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truths, the history, which belong to the nation that sets it forth.

When the French tricolor rolls out to the wind, we see France. When the new-found Italian flag is unfurled, we see resurrected Italy. When the other three-cornered Hungarian flag shall be lifted to the wind, we shall see in it the long-buried but never dead principles of Hungarian liberty. When the united crosses of St. Andrew and St. George on a fiery ground set forth the banner of Old England, we see

not the cloth merely; there rises up before the mind the noble aspect of that monarchy, which, more than any other on the globe, has advanced its banner for liberty, law, and national prosperity.

This nation has a banner too; and wherever it streamed abroad, men saw daybreak bursting on their eyes, for the American flag has been the symbol of liberty, and men rejoiced in it. Not another flag on the globe had such an errand, or went forth upon the sea, carrying everywhere, the world around, such hope for the captive and such glorious tidings.

The stars upon it were to the pining nations like the morning stars of God, and the stripes upon it were beams of morning light.

As at early dawn the stars stand first, and then it grows light, and then as the sun advances, that light breaks into banks and streaming lines of color, the glowing red and intense white striving together and ribbing the horizon with bars effulgent, so on the American flag, stars and beams of many colored light shine out together. And wherever the flag comes, and men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry, no rampant lion and fierce eagle, but only LIGHT, and every fold significant of liberty.

The history of this banner is all on one side. Under it rode Washington and his armies; before it Burgoyne laid down his arms. It waved on the highlands at West Point; it floated over old Fort Montgomery. When Arnold would have surrendered these valuable fortresses and precious legacies, his night was turned into day, and his treachery was driven away, by the beams of light from this starry banner.

It cheered our army, driven from New York, in their solitary pilgrimage through New Jersey. It streamed in light over Valley Forge and Morristown. It crossed the waters rolling with ice at Trenton; and when its stars gleamed in the cold morning with victory, a new day of hope dawned on the despondency of the nation. And when, at length, the long years of war were drawing to a close, underneath the folds of this immortal banner sat Washington while Yorktown surrendered its hosts, and our Revolutionary struggles ended with victory.

Let us then twine each thread of the glorious tissue of our country's flag about our heartstrings; and looking upon our homes and catching the spirit that breathes upon us from the battle-fields of our fathers, let us resolve, come weal or woe, we will, in life and in death, now and forever, stand by the stars and stripes. They have been unfurled from the snows of Canada to the plains of New Orleans, in the halls of the Montezumas and amid the solitude of every sea; and everywhere, as the luminous symbol of resistless and beneficent power, they have led the brave to victory and to glory. They have floated over our cradles; let it be our prayer and our struggle that they shall float over our graves.

LIDES TO BARY JADE.

The bood is beabig brighdly love,
The sdars are shidig too;
While I ab gazig dreabily
Add thigkig, love, of you;

You caddot, oh, you caddot kdow,
By darlig, how I biss you-

(Oh, whadt a fearful cold I've got-
Ck-tish-u! Ck-ck-tish-u!)

I'b sittig id the arbor, love

Where you sat by by side,

Whed od that calb, Autubdal dight
You said you'd be by bride.

Oh, for wud bobedt to caress
Add tederly to kiss you;

Budt do! we're beddy biles apart—
(Ho-rash-o! Ck-ck-tish-u!)

This charbig evedig brigs to bide
The tibe whed first we bet;
It seebs budt odly yesterday,
I thigk I see you yet.

Oh tell be, ab I sdill your owd?
By hopes oh, do dot dash theb!
(Codfoud by cold, 'tis gettig worse-
Ck-tish-u! Ck-ck-thrash-eb!)

Good-by, by darlig Bary Jade
The bid-dight hour is dear,
Add it is hardly wise by love
For be to ligger here!

The heavy dews are fallig fast;
A fod good dight I wish you;
(Ho-rash-o-there it is agaid-
Ck-thrash-ub! Ck-ck-tish-u!)

Scribner's Monthly.

THERE'S TAN IN THE STREET.

A. WALLACE THAXTER.

There's a wail in the mansion

A tear and a sigh,

And the car and the cart
Go noiselessly by.

Tread lightly-tread softly-
Still the noise of your feet,
For death is about us---
"There's tan in the street."

Is she weeping, that mother,
As she looks on her boy,
Sees the eye cold in dying
So late lit with joy?
Ah, mother! in heaven
Thy darling thou'lt meet,
Though aching thy heart now,-
For" there's tan in the street."

Is he bowed down, that strong man,
That his beautiful bride-
Whose cheek gave the warning-
In beauty has died?

Her soul is in glory

In a sainted retreat,

Though her corpse is beside thee,

And "there's tan in the street."

As we plod along daily

In the hackneyed routine,

We heed not the lessons
To be gathered, I ween,
From the myriad trifles
That daily we meet,

Or the warning that's found
In the "tan in the street."