A summer's twilight saw him fall,
Dead on Verdun's leaguered wall.

Where, alas! is the little cot?
Ask the blackened walls of Gravelotte!

Under the lilac broods alone
A maid whose heart is turned to stone.

Who sits, with folded fingers, dumb,
And meekly prays that her time may come!

Yet see! the Death-god's baleful star!
And War's black eagle screams afar!

And lo! the Christmas shadows wane
Over the hills of sad Lorraine.

Quarterly, 1873.

IN ANSWER

"S."

And thou didst idly dream,
Or, careless of thy action, think,
To cast a veil o'er all the past
And weld anew the broken link?
Vain thought to weave anew the bond
That thou didst ruthless sever;
Know friendship often turns to love,
But love to friendship never.