And as, with haughty glance, he swept
Along the jeering crowd,

A white-haired blacksmith in the ranks
Took off his cap and bowed.

That night the Labor League was met,
And soon the chairman said:
"There hides a Judas in our midst,
One man who bows his head,

Who bends the coward's servile knee

When capital rolls by."

"Down with him! Kill the traitor cur!"

Rang out the savage cry.

Up rose the blacksmith, then, and held
Erect his head of gray:

"I am no traitor, though I bowed

To a rich man's son to-day;
And though you kill me as I stand-
As like you mean to do-

I want to tell you a story short,

And I ask you'll hear me through.

"I was one of those who enlisted first,

The Old Flag to defend,

With Pope and Hallock, with 'Mac' and Grant, I followed to the end;

And 'twas somewhere down on the Rapidan,

When the Union cause looked drear, That a regiment of rich young bloods Came down to us from here.

"Their uniforms were by tailors cut;
They brought hampers of good wine;
And every squad had a servant, too,
To keep their boots in shine;

They'd naught to say to us dusty 'vets,'
And, through the whole brigade,
We called them the kid-gloved Dandy Fifth,
When we passed them on parade.

"Well, they were sent to hold a fort

The Rebs tried hard to take,

'Twas the key of all our line, which naught While it held out could break.

But a fearful fight we lost just then

The reserve came up too late;

And on that fort, and the Dandy Fifth,
Hung the whole division's fate.

"Three times we tried to take them aid, And each time back we fell,

Though once we could hear the fort's far guns Boom like a funeral knell;

Till at length Joe Hooker's corps came up,
And then straight through we broke;
How we cheered as we saw those dandy coats
Still back of the drifting smoke!

"With the bands all front and our colors spread We swarmed up the parapet,

But the sight that silenced our welcome shout
I shall never in life forget.

Four days before had their water gone,—
They had dreaded that the most,-
The next their last scant ration went,
And each man looked a ghost.

"As he stood, gaunt-eyed, behind his gun, Like a crippled stag at bay,

And watched starvation-though not defeat--
Draw nearer every day.

Of all the Fifth, not fourscore men
Could in their places stand,

And their white lips told a fearful tale,
As we grasped each bloodless hand.

"The rest in the stupor of famine lay,
Save here and there a few

In death sat rigid against the guns,
Grim sentinels in blue;

And their Colonel, he could not speak or stir, But we saw his proud eye thrill

As he simply glanced at the shot-scarred staff Where the old flag floated still!

"Now, I hate the tyrants who grind us down, While the wolf snarls at our door,

And the men who've risen from us to laugh At the misery of the poor;

But I tell you, mates, while this weak old hand
I have left the strength to lift,

It will touch my cap to the proudest swell
Who fought in the Dandy Fifth!"

THE FAMINE.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

O the long and dreary Winter!
O the cold and cruel Winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker
Froze the ice on lake and river,
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper
Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow, and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.

Hardly from his buried wigwam
Could the hunter force a passage;
With his mittens and his snow-shoes
Vainly walked he through the forest,
Sought for bird or beast and found none,
Saw no track of deer or rabbit,

In the snow beheld no footprints,
In the ghastly, gleaming forest

Fell, and could not rise from weakness,
Perished there from cold and hunger.
O the famine and the fever!
O the wasting of the famine!
O the blasting of the fever!
O the wailing of the children!
O the anguish of the women!

All the earth was sick and famished;
Hungry was the air around them,
Hungry was the sky above them,
And the hungry stars in heaven
Like the eyes of wolves glared at them!
Into Hiawatha's wigwam

Came two other guests, as silent
As the ghosts were, and as gloomy,
Waited not to be invited,

Did not parley at the doorway,
Sat there without word of welcome
In the seat of Laughing Water;