From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and the foe;—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;—
Under the roses, the Blue;
Under the lilies, the Gray.
So with an equal splendor
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch, impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;—
Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.
So, when the Summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain;—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;—
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.
Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;
In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won;—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;—
Under the blossoms, the Blue,
Under the garlands, the Gray.
No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;—
Love and tears for the Blue.
Tears and love for the Gray.
FUGITIVES FROM LABOR.
Young America in on the anxious-seat. An imploring cry comes up from the hearts of thousands, "What shall we do to be saved—from work?"
In the happy days of the Adamses, as Professor Agassiz has taught us to say, when every vine was a lodging rent-free, and the fig-trees furnished ready-made clothing, life was a pleasant pastime. But this is an age of cash or barter. The old common-law maxim concerning pains and penalties is the rule of modern society: Qui non habet in crumena, luat in corpore,—"He who cannot pay his fare must work his passage." To evade this law, to shirk the forecastle, and to devise some means of climbing into the cabin-windows, is the problem that the youth of this generation are trying to solve.
The United States offer so many unprospected or half-worked placers to sharp eyes, that we must look for a great deal of vagabondry. Gold-miners do not settle themselves down to crushing quartz, so long as there are nuggets to be picked up. Rare chances lie hidden in the by-paths of this broad country, to tempt men to straggle from the ranks of the steady workers and turn foragers and bummers.