How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
    By all their country’s wishes blest! 
    When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
    Returns to deck their hallow’d mould,
    She there shall dress a sweeter sod
    Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.

    By fairy hands their knell is rung,
    By forms unseen their dirge is sung: 
    There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
    To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
    And Freedom shall a while repair
    To dwell a weeping hermit there!

WILLIAM COLLINS.

 THE FLAG GOES BY.

“The Flag Goes By” is included out of regard to a boy of eleven years who pleased me by his great appreciation of it.  It teaches the lesson of reverence to our great national symbol.  It is published by permission of the author, Henry Holcomb Bennett, of Ohio. (1863-.)

                Hats off! 
    Along the street there comes
    A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
    A flash of colour beneath the sky: 
                Hats off! 
    The flag is passing by!

    Blue and crimson and white it shines
    Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines. 
                Hats off! 
    The colours before us fly;
    But more than the flag is passing by.

    Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,
    Fought to make and to save the State: 
    Weary marches and sinking ships;
    Cheers of victory on dying lips;

    Days of plenty and years of peace;
    March of a strong land’s swift increase;
    Equal justice, right, and law,
    Stately honour and reverend awe;

    Sign of a nation, great and strong
    Toward her people from foreign wrong: 
    Pride and glory and honour,—­all
    Live in the colours to stand or fall.

                Hats off! 
    Along the street there comes
    A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums;
    And loyal hearts are beating high: 
                Hats off! 
    The flag is passing by!

HENRY HOLCOMB BENNETT.

 HOHENLINDEN.

    On Linden, when the sun was low,
    All bloodless lay th’ untrodden snow;
    And dark as winter was the flow
        Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

    But Linden saw another sight,
    When the drum beat, at dead of night,
    Commanding fires of death to light
        The darkness of her scenery.

    By torch and trumpet fast array’d
    Each horseman drew his battle-blade,
    And furious every charger neigh’d
        To join the dreadful revelry.

    Then shook the hills with thunder riven,
    Then rush’d the steed to battle driven,
    And louder than the bolts of Heaven,
        Far flashed the red artillery.

    But redder yet that light shall glow
    On Linden’s hills or stained snow;
    And bloodier yet the torrent flow
        Of Iser, rolling rapidly.