Come, Sophy, my blossom!  I’ve something to say
    Will chase for a moment your gambols away: 
    To-day as we climbed the steep mountain-path o’er,
    I noticed a bare-footed lad in my corps;
    “How comes it,”—­I asked,—­“you look careful and bold,
    How comes it you’re marching, unshod, through the cold?”

    “Ah, sir!  I’m a poor, lonely orphan, you see;
    No mother, no friends that are caring for me;
    If I’m wounded, or captured, or killed, in the war,
    ’Twill matter to nobody, Colonel Dunbar.”

    Now, Sophy!—­your needles, dear!—­Knit him some socks,
    And send the poor fellow a pair in my box;
    Then he’ll know,—­and his heart with the thought will be filled,—­
    There is one little maiden will care if he’s killed.

    The fire burns dimly, and scattered around,
    The men lie asleep on the snow-covered ground;
    But ere in my blanket I wrap me to rest,
    I hold you, my darling, close,—­close, to my breast: 
    God love you!  God grant you His comforting light! 
    I kiss you a thousand times over!—­Good night!

V.

    “To-morrow is Christmas!”—­and clapping his hands,
    Little Archie in joyful expectancy stands,
    And watches the shadows, now short and now tall,
    That momently dance up and down on the wall.

    Drawn curtains of crimson shut out the cold night,
    And the parlor is pleasant with odours and light;
    The soft lamp suspended, its mellowness throws
    O’er cluster’d geranium, jasmine and rose;
    The sleeping canary hangs caged midst the blooms,
    A Sybarite slumberer steeped in perfumes;
    For Alice still clings to her birds and her flowers,
    Sweet tokens of kindlier, happier hours.

    “To-morrow is Christmas!—­but Beverly,—­say,
    Will it do to be glad when Papa is away?”
    And the face that is tricksy and blythe as can be,
    Tries vainly to temper its shadowless glee.

    “For you, pet, I’m sure it is right to be glad;
    ’Tis a pitiful thing to see little ones sad;
    But for Sophy and me, who are older, you know,—­
    We dare not be glad when we look at the snow! 
    I shrink from this comfort, this light and this heat,
    This plenty to wear, and this plenty to eat,
    When the soldiers who fight for us,—­die for us,—­lie,
    With nothing around and above, but the sky;
    When their clothes are so light, and the rations they deal,
    Are only a morsel of bacon and meal: 
    And how can I fold my thick blankets around,
    When I know that my father’s asleep on the ground? 
    I’m ashamed to be happy, or merry, or free,
    As if war and its trials were nothing to me: 
    Oh!  I never can know any frolic or fun,—­
    Any real, mad romps,—­till