Ever its torn folds rose and fell

On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it with a warm good-night.

Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,

And the rebel rides on his raids no more.

Honour to her! and let a tear

Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.

Over Barbara Frietchie's grave
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!

Peace and order and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law;

And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town!

J. G. Whittier

THE LUTIST AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

ASSING from Italy to Greece, the tales

Which poets of an elder time have feign'd
To glorify their Tempe, bred in me
Desire of visiting Paradise.

To Thessaly I came, and living private,

Without acquaintance of more sweet companions
Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts,

I day by day frequented silent groves
And solitary walks. One morning early
This accident encounter'd me: I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention
That art and nature ever were at strife in.
A sound of music touch'd mine ears, or rather
Indeed entranced my soul; as I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw

This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute
With strains of strange variety and harmony
Proclaiming, as it seem'd, so bold a challenge
To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds,
That as they flock'd about him, all stood silent,
Wondering at what they heard. I wonder'd too.
A nightingale,

Nature's best skill'd musician, undertakes

The challenge; and for every several strain.

The well-shaped youth could touch, she sang him down.

He could not run divisions with more art

Upon his quaking instrument than she,

The nightingale, did with her various notes

Reply to.

Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last

Into a pretty anger, that a bird,

Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, nor notes,

Should vie with him for mastery, whose study

Had busied many hours to perfect practice.

To end the controversy, in a rapture

Upon his instrument he play'd so swiftly,

So many voluntaries, and so quick,

That there was curiosity and cunning,

Concord in discord, lines of differing method

Meeting in one full centre of delight.

The bird (ordain'd to be

Music's first martyr) strove to imitate

These several sounds; which when her warbling throat

Fail'd in, for grief down dropt she on his lute,

And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness

To see the conqueror upon her hearse

To weep a funeral elegy of tears.

He look'd upon the trophies of his art,

Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes; then sigh'd and cried, "Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge

This cruelty upon the author of it.

Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood,

Shall never more betray a harmless peace

To an untimely end:" and in that sorrow,

As he was dashing it against a tree,

I suddenly stepp'd in.

Ford.

It had so sweet a breath! and oft

I blush'd to see its foot more soft,

And white, shall I say? than my handThan any lady's of the land.

It was a wondrous thing how fleet
'Twas on those little silver feet.
With what a pretty skipping grace
It oft would challenge me the race;
And when't had left me far away,
'Twould stay, and run again, and stay.
For it was nimbler much than hinds,
And trod as if on the four winds.

I have a garden of my own,

But so with roses overgrown,

And lilies, that you would it guess

To be a little wilderness;

And all the spring-time of the year
It loved only to be there.
Among the beds of lilies I

Have sought it oft, where it should lie;
Yet could not, till itself would rise,
Find it although before mine eyes;
For in the flaxen lilies' shade,
It like a bank of lilies laid.
Upon the roses it would feed,

Until its lips e'en seem'd to bleed;
And then to me 'twould boldly trip,
And print those roses on my lip.
But all its chief delight was still

On roses thus itself to fill;

And its pure virgin lips to fold

In whitest sheets of lilies cold.

Had it lived long, it would have been
Lilies without, roses within.