DUTY

FROM "ODE ON the Death of the Duke of Wellington," BY ALFRED TENNYSON

Yea, let all good things await

Him who cares not to be great,

But as he saves or serves the state.

Not once or twice in our rough island-story,

The path of duty was the way to glory :
He that walks it, only thirsting

For the right, and learns to deaden
Love of self, before his journey closes,
He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting
Into glossy purples, which outredden
All voluptuous garden-roses.

Not once or twice in our fair island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory :
He, that ever following her commands,

On with toil of heart and knees and hands,
Through the long gorge to the far light has won
His path upward, and prevailed,

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled

Are close upon the shining table-lands

To which our God Himself is moon and sun.

Such was he his work is done,

But while the races of mankind endure,
Let his great example stand

Colossal, seen of every land,

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure ;
Till in all lands and through all human story
The path of duty be the way to glory.

HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG

BY WILL H. THOMPSON

Mr. Thompson is an able lawyer and a poet of note. He was born in Georgia in 1848. The best-known of his poems is this fine ballad. Consult histories of the United States for a full account of the great battle of Gettysburg, the turning-point in the War between the States. There is a full and interesting description of Gettysburg in "Hammer and Rapier," by John Esten Cooke.

A cloud possessed the hollow field,
The gathering battle's smoky shield;

Athwart the gloom the lightning flashed,

And through the cloud some horsemen dashed,
And through the heights the thunder pealed.
Then, at the brief command of Lee,
Moved out that matchless infantry,
With Pickett leading grandly down
To rush against the roaring crown
Of those dread heights of destiny.

Far heard above the angry guns,

A cry across the tumult runs

The voice that rang through Shiloh's woods

And Chickamauga's solitudes

The fierce South cheering on her sons.

Ah, how the withering tempest blew
Against the front of Pettigrew!

A khamsin wind that scorched and singed,
Like that infernal flame that fringed

The British squares at Waterloo!

A thousand fell where Kemper led;
A thousand died where Garnett bled;

In blinding flame and strangling smoke, The remnant through the batteries broke And crossed the works with Armistead.

"Once more in Glory's van with me!" Virginia cries to Tennessee;

"We two together, come what may, Shall stand upon those works to-day!" The reddest day in history!

Virginia heard her comrades say:

"Close round this rent and riddled rag!" What time she set her battle flag

Amid the guns of Doubleday.

But who shall break the guards that wait
Before the awful face of Fate?

The tattered standards of the South
Were shriveled at the cannon's mouth,
And all her hopes were desolate.

In vain the Tennessean set
His breast against the bayonet;

In vain Virginia charged and raged,
A tigress in her wrath uncaged,
Till all the hill was red and wet,

Above the bayonets mixed and crossed
Men saw a gray gigantic ghost

Receding through the battle cloud,
And heard across the tempest loud
The death-cry of a nation lost.

The brave went down!

Without disgrace

They leaped to Ruin's red embrace;
They only heard Fame's thunder wake,
And saw the dazzling sunburst break
In smiles on Glory's bloody face!

They fell who lifted up a hand
And bade the sun in Heaven to stand;
They smote and fell who set the bars
Against the progress of the stars,
And stayed the march of Motherland.

They stood who saw the future come
On through the fight's delirium ;

They smote and stood who held the hope
Of nations on that slippery slope,

Amid the cheers of Christendom!

God lives! He forged the iron will
That clutched and held that trembling hill!
God lives and reigns! He built and lent
The heights of Freedom's battlement,
Where floats her flag in triumph still!

Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns!
Love rules! Her gentler purpose runs!
A mighty mother turns in tears
The pages of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons!

A HERO IN GRAY

BY HENRY WOODFIN GRADY

Grady was an American journalist and orator. He was born in Georgia in 1850 and died in 1889. He took an active interest in all plans for southern development, and his common sense and eloquence did much to establish good feeling between North and South. This selection is from a speech before the New England Club in New York City.

Read the whole of this speech and of his Texas speech and of his two Boston addresses.

Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master's hand, the picture of your returning armies. He has told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation's eyes.

Will you bear with me while I tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late war— an army that marched home in defeat and not in victory, in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed heroes home.

Let me picture to you the foot-sore Confederate soldier, as buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which