O winds! why sound so mournful?
’Tis the grand autumnal time;
The world is dressed in splendor,
And all things are sublime.
There’s a fulness in the vales,
Fraught with blessings rich and rare;
Ripe fruits bedeck the uplands
And hillsides everywhere.
O winds! why sigh so mournful
Through the forest’s golden sheen?
More touchingly beautiful
Than all the summer’s green.
’Tis true the leaves are falling,
The forest glades along;
The birds are fleeing southward,
I hear their farewell song.
O winds! I, too, am mournful
O’er the things that cannot be,
And thoughts that crowd my bosom
Sob like waves along the sea.
O voices, long, long silent!
O faces, long hid away!
Your presence breathes around me
With the mournful winds to-day.
THE BATTLE OF BATOCHE.
We were waiting for the signal
In our lines before Batoche;
Ready, eager, and expectant
For the grand and final rush.
For three days we had been fighting—
On the rebels’ pits we’d rained
A furious and pelting fire,
And our advance maintained.
All along our lines ’twas whispered
“We storm the pits to-morrow,”
And a thrill of valor swept our ranks,
Dispelling care and sorrow.
We laid the smoking rifle by
When the shades of night drew on,
And grouped about the camp-fire’s light
To await the morrow’s dawn.
And some sang songs of home and love,
And some of martial glory;
And merry laugh responsive came
To pun, or stirring story.
The sentries paced their lonely round;
All silent was the scene
Save for here and there a dropping shot
From pit or dark ravine.
The soldier sank to peaceful rest,
The earth his slumber-bed;
The night winds crooned a lullaby,
The stars beamed o’er his head.
And all, perhaps, were thinking then
Of loved ones far away—
Brave hearts, that ere the morrow’s eve
Should perish in the fray.