Comrades known in marches many,
Comrades tried in dangers many,
Comrades bound by memories many,
       Brothers ever let us be.
Wounds or sickness may divide us,
Marching orders may divide us,
But whatever fate betide us,
       Brothers of the heart are we.
                     --CHARLES G. HALPINE.

       These men with flag in hand
Or eye to field-glass fixed, unmoved must stand,
When one false word, one swinging motion wrong,
Might change the fate of battles. Such is my song.
                     --ADIN BALLOU CAPRON.

       On yon height,
Linstock in hand, the gunners hold their breath:
       A signal rocket pierces the dense night,
Flings its spent stars upon the town beneath:
       Hark! the artillery massing on the right,
Hark! the black squadrons wheeling down to Death!
                     --THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

Where are the comrades once we knew
       When war swept o'er the land,
Who followed where bugles blew
       Their echoes of command?
In nameless graves lie some asleep,
       Buried where they were slain,
And some in ocean's mighty deep
       Forgotten long have lain.
              --FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN.

My home is drear and still to-night,
       Where Shenandoah, murmuring, flows;
The Blue Ridge towers in the pale moonlight,
       And balmily the south-wind blows.
                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
What drew our hunters from the hills?
       They heard the hostile trumpets blow,
And leapt adown like April rill
       When Shenandoah roars below.
One, to the field where the old flag shines,
And one, alas! to the traitor lines!
My tears, -their fond arms round me thrown,-
And the house was hushed on the hillside lone.
                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I cannot part their lives and say,
       "This was the traitor, this the true;"
God only knows why one should stray,
       And one go pure death's portals through.
They have passed from their mother's clasp and care;
But my heart ascends in the yearning prayer
That His larger love will the two enfold,-
My Courtney fair and my Philip bold!
                     --EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.

The Wind King from the North came down,
Nor stopped by river, mount, or town;
But, like a boisterous god at play
Resistless, bounding on his way
He shook the lake and tore the wood,
And flapped his wings in merry mood,
Nor furled them, till he spied afar
The white caps flash on Hatteras bar,
Where fierce Atlantic landward bowls
O'er treacherous sands and hidden shoals.
                            --JOSIAH W. HOLDEN.

All hail to thee, Ohio, lovely stream!
That sweepest, murmuring by, in holy dreams,
New cities, with their market-din profane,
Colossal rocks and fields of golden grain!
                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
See giant trees, thy axe forbore to smite,
Stretch out their arms, festooned in towering height,
With wanton serpent-flowers, -they suppliant stand,
Envoys of peace they came from forest land!
                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
But lo! by moonlight, yonder dead and bare,
A few old patriarchs lift their arms in air,
Like ghosts of veterans in the battle slain,
Wringing their hands and writhing on the plain!
                     --GRAF VON AUERSPERG.

Here let me pause, by the lone eagle's nest,
And breathe the golden sunlight and sweet air,
Which gird and gladden all this region fair
With a pepetual benison of rest.
                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Here, friend, upon this lofty ledge sit down,
And view the beautwous prospect spread below,
Around, above us; in the noonday glow
How calm the landscape rests! -you distant town,
Enwreathed with clouds of foliage, like a crown
Of rustic honor; the soft, silvery flow
Of the clear stream beyond it, and the show
Of endless wooded heights, circling the brown
Autumnal fields, alive with billowy grain; -
Say, hast thou ever gazed on aught more fair
In Europe or the Orient?
                     --PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.

There was riding and railroading
       and expressing here and thither;
And the Martinsburg sharpshooters
       and the Charlestown Volunteers,
And the Shepherdstown and Whinchester
       Mailitia hastened whither
Old brown was said to muster
        his ten thousand grenadiers.
              General Brown!
       Ossawattomie Brown!
Behind whose rampant banner
       all the North was pouring down.
              --EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

Farewell! our skies are darkened
       and yet the stars will shine,
We'll close our ranks together
       and still fall into line,
Till one is left, one only,
       to morn for all the rest;
And Heaven bequeath their memories
       to Him who loves us best!
                     --OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

       In God's own might
We gird us for coming fight,
And, strong in Him whose cause is ours
In conflict with unholy powers,
We grasp the weapons He has given,--
The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven.
                                   --WHITTIER.

The lines that march deploying thro' the valleys
       Advance and then retreat,
The impetuous mass that up the hill-side sallies,
       Columns that part and meet --
Thine is their purpose and their destination;
       Thy stroke their guiding hand,
Whose gestures link in close communication
       Commander and command.
                     --CAROLINE STICKNEY.

From every valley and hill they came,
The clamoring voices of fife and drum;
And out in the cool, fresh, morning air
The soldiers are swarming everywhere.
       Fall in! Fall in! Fall in!
              Every man in his place.
       Fall in! Fall in! Fall in!
              Each with a cheerful face,
       Fall in! Fall in! Fall in!
                     --MICHAEL O'CONNOR.

Furl that Banner, for 'tis weary,
Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary:
       Furl it, fold it, - it is best;
For there's not a man to wave it,
And there's not a sword to save it,
       Furl it, hide it, - let it rest!
                                   --A. J. RYAN.
                                   (The Confederate Poet.)

I hear the inarticulate murmurs flow
Of the faint wind-tides breathing like a sea;
When, in clear vision, softly dawns on me
(As if in contrast with you slow decay)
The lovelist land that smiles beneath the sky,
The coast-land of our Western Italy.
                     --PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.

The tents that whitened Arlington have
       vanished from the fields,
And plenty, where the cannon stood,
        a golden harvest yields;
The campfires gleam no more at night,
        and pleasant mornings come
Without the blare of bugles
       or the beating of the drum.
                            ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
But though the camps have vanished
       and the tents are laid away,
An army waits upon the knolls
       in undisturbed array,-
A legion without banners,
       that knows no music save
The wailing of the dead-march
       and a volley o'er the grave.
                            --S. M. CARPENTER.

Historic mount! baptized in flame and blood,
Thy name is as immortal as the rocks
That crowned thy thunder-scarred but royal brow.
                                   I gaze
From this tall height on Chickamauga's field,
Where Death held erst high carnival.
The tramp! the shout! the fearful thunder-roar
Of red-breathed cannon, and the wailing cry
Of myriad victims, filled the air.
                                   The soil was wet
And miry with the life-blood of the brave,
As with a drenching rain; and you broad stream,-
The noble and majestic Tennessee,-
Ran reddened toward the deep.
                     --GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

Do you know of the dreary land,
       If land such regon may seem,
Where 'tis neither sea nor strand,
Ocean nor good dry land,
       But the nightmare marsh of a dream?
Where the Mighty River his death-road takes,
Mid pools and windings that coil like snakes,
A hundred leagues of bayous and lakes,
       To die in the great Gulf Stream?
                     --HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL.

I read last night of the Grand Review
In Washington's chiefest avenue, -
Two hundred thousand men in blue,
       I think they said was the number,-
Till I seemed to hear their trampling feet,
The bugle blast and the drums's quick beat,
And the thousand details that to repeat
       Would only my verse encumber, -
Till I fell in a revery, sad and sweet,
       And then to a fitful slumber.
                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And I saw a phantom army come,
With never a sound of fife and drum,
But keeping time to a throbbing hum
       Of wailing and lumentation.
The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill,
Of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville,
The men whose wasted figures fill
       The patriot graves of the nation.
                                   --BRET HARTE.

To the West! To the West!
       Where the rivers that flow
Run thousands of miles,
       spreading out as they go;
Where the green waving forests
       that echo our call
Are wide as old England,
       and free to us all:
Where the prairies, like seas
       where the billows have rolled,
Are broad as the kingdoms
       and empires of old.
                     --CHARLES MACKAY.