Over Barbara Frietchie's grave, Peace, and order, and beauty draw And ever the stars above look down JOHN GREENLeaf Whittier. THE OLD SERGEANT.1 THE carrier cannot sing to-night the ballads With which he used to go Rhyming the grand round of the Happy New Years That are now beneath the snow; For the same awful and portentous shadow That overcast the earth, And smote the land last year with desolation, Still darkens every hearth. And the carrier hears Beethoven's mighty Deadmarch Come up from every mart, And he hears and feels it breathing in his bosom, And beating in his heart. 1 This very remarkable poem was distributed, on the first day of the year 1863, by the carriers of the Louisville Journal. And to-day, like a scarred and weather-beaten veteran, Again he comes along, To tell the story of the Old Year's struggles, In another New Year's song. And the song is his, but not so with the story; Was told in prose to Assistant-Surgeon Austin, By Robert Burton, who was brought up on the Adams, With his death-wound in his side, And who told the story to the Assistant-Surgeon On the same night that he died. But the singer feels it will better suit the ballad, If all should deem it right, To sing the story as if what it speaks of Had happened but last night. "Come a little nearer, doctor, — thank you, — let me Maybe you may think I'm better; but I'm pretty well used up, Doctor, you've done all you could do, but I'm just a-going up! "Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain't "Never say that," said the surgeon, as he smothered down a sigh; "It will never do, old comrade, for a soldier to say die !" "What you say will make no difference, doctor, when you come to die. "Doctor, what has been the matter?" very faint, they say; You must try to get some sleep now." have I been away?" "You were "Doctor, "Not that anybody knows of!" "Doctor, doc tor, please to stay! There is something I must tell you, and you won't have long to stay! "I have got my marching orders, and I'm ready now to go; Doctor, did you say I fainted?- but it could n't ha' been so, For as sure as I'm a sergeant and was wounded at Shiloh, I've this very night been back there, on the old field of Shiloh ! "This is all that I remember! The last time the lighter came, And the lights had all been lowered, and the noises much the same, He had not been gone five minutes before something called my name : ORDERLY SERGEANT - ROBERT BURTON! just that way it called my name. "And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so slow, Knew it couldn't be the lighter, — he could not And I tried to answer, 'Here, sir!' but I could n't make it go! For I could n't move a muscle, and I could n't make it go! "Then I thought: 'It's all a nightmare, all a humbug and a bore ; Just another foolish grapevine,1 and it won't come any more ; ' But it came, sir, notwithstanding, just the same way 1 Army slang term for a canard, or false news. |