High time that vengeance should have full swing
Over small and great!

"Reap down their crops with your swords!
Harry! ravage!

Hound on the rage of your hireling hordes,—
Hessian and savage!"

So the blaze of Fairfield flushed the sky;
New Haven's smoke went rolling high;
Far Norwalk cried with a bitter cry;
And the sons of the Puritan pioneers
Saw the toil and thrift of a hundred years
Spoiled in an hour.

Well, at last drew on the day,

Dark with ill omen.

Off the mouth of the bay,

Flapping their wings in the gray
Like carrion birds, they lay,—
The ships of the foeman,

"To talk of defence were wild;

We are beaten, plundered, defiled;

They spare not the old, nor the sick, nor the child, Nor the woman!"

Not so spoke Ledyard, brave soul,
Our noble commander.

O History, point, on your roll,

To a nobler or grander!

He stepped from his farm-house door,

A hero like those of yore.

Oh, fair was the look of grace that he wore,
And of candor!

Now briskly he spoke to his troops,—

Not a sigh, not a frown.

No thought or of fears or of hopes,

But of honor and duty alone.

No question of gain or loss;—

Only Home and the righteous cause; So he signalled the handful of gunners across From the battery under the town.

Few, few, in the big redoubt,
The sons of the Puritans stood,
And over the parapet-wall looked out
Beyond the fringe of the wood;
Saw the enemy's blood-red lines uncoil
And wind out snake-like over the soil;
Heard the shrill fifes piping scorn;

Saw the steel flash back the morn,
And the cruel cross before them borne,—
The cross in a field of blood;
Looked town-ward over the bay;
Along the country roads

Saw women and children running away
With bits of their household goods;
Saw the red-coats and Hessians
Dragging through dust and mire
The spoil of their poor possessions;
And at last-the fire!

From the hills and the woods came down,

When the enemy had crossed;

And there, in the autumn weather,
Lay the dead all tumbled together,
Stripped and mangled and tossed.

Two-score widows of Groton-town
Walked 'mid the corpses up and down;

Turned the dead faces up to the light,
Calling, calling into the night;

Listening for word or voice
From husband, or father, or boys;

Waiting, speaking,
Questioning, seeking

Over the torn sod, reeking

With the blood of Groton Height.

And there by the sally-port,

Where the foe had entered the fort,
Lay Ledyard, gallant knight,

His bosom gored by his own brave sword,
And his hero-blood on the ground outpoured,
For the right.

LEONARD WOOLSEY BACON.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

OUR bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night, a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track;
'Twas autumn, and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields, traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young, I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart.

"Stay, stay with us, rest, thou art weary and worn!"
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay,—
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away!

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

CRESCENTIUS.

(Sismondi, in his "Italian Republics," says that "Crescentius, who obtained the title of Consul A.D. 980, attempted to restore Rome to her former liberty and glory. He capitulated to Emperor Otho III., and was put to death.")

I LOOKED upon his brow,-no sign

Of guilt or fear was there;

He stood as proud by that death-shrine

As even o'er despair

He had a power; in his eye

There was a deathless energy,

A spirit that could dare

The deadliest form that death could take,

And dare it for the daring's sake.

He stood, the fetters on his hand,—
He raised them haughtily;

And had that grasp been on the brand,
It could not wave on high

With freer pride than it waved now.
Around he looked with changeless brow
On many a torture nigh,—

The rack, the chain, the axe, the wheel,
And, worst of all, his own red steel.

I saw him once before; he rode
Upon a coal-black steed,

And tens of thousands thronged the road,
And bade their warrior speed.

His helm, his breastplate, were of gold,
And graved with many a dint, that told
Of many a soldier's deed;

The sun shone on his sparkling mail,
And danced his snow-plume on the gale.

But now he stood, chained and alone,
The headsman by his side;
The plume, the helm, the charger gone;
The sword that had defied

The mightiest, lay broken near;
And yet no sign or sound of fear
Came from that lip of pride;
And never king or conqueror's brow
Wore higher look than his did now.

He bent beneath the headsman's stroke
With an uncovered eye;

A wild shout from the numbers broke
Who thronged to see him die.

It was a people's loud acclaim,
The voice of anger and of shame,
A nation's funeral cry,-
Rome's wail above her only son,
Her patriot,—and her latest one.

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON.

OUR FATHERS' GOD.

HYMN OF THE VAUDOIS MOUNTAINEERS.

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers' God.

Thou hast made Thy children mighty by the touch of the

mountain sod,