Echoed from earth a hollow roar
Like ocean on the midnight shore.
A sheet of lightning o'er them wheeled,
The solid ground beneath them reeled;
In dust sank roof and battlement;
Like webs the giant walls were rent;
Red, broad, before his startled gaze
The monarch saw his Egypt blaze.

Still swelled the plague,-the flame grew pale;
Burst from the clouds the charge of hail;
With arrowy keenness, iron weight,
Down poured the ministers of fate;
Till man and cattle, crushed, congealed,
Covered with death the boundless field.
Still swelled the plague,-uprose the blast,
The avenger, fit to be the last.
On ocean, river, forest, vale,

Thundered at once the mighty gale.
Before the whirlwind flew the tree,
Beneath the whirlwind roared the sea;
A thousand ships were on the wave,—
Where are they? Ask that foaming grave!
Down go the hope, the pride of years,
Down go the myriad mariners;
The riches of earth's richest zone,—
Gone! like flash of lightning, gone!

And, lo! that first fierce triumph o'er,
Swells ocean on the shrinking shore;
Still onward, onward, dark and wide,
Engulfs the land the furious tide.
Then bowed thy spirit, stubborn king,
Thou serpent, reft of fang and sting!

Humbled before the prophet's knee,
He groaned: "Be injured Israel free!"
To heaven the sage upraised his wand;
Back rolled the deluge from the land;
Back to its caverns sank the gale;
Fled from the noon the vapors pale;
Broad burned again the joyous sun;
The hour of wrath and death was done.

THE OLD SURGEON'S STORY*

-E. C. DONNELLY.

'Twas in a Southern hospital, a month ago or more. (God save us! how the days drag on these weary Times of war!)

They brought me, in the sultry noon, a youth whom they had found

Deserted by his regiment upon the battle-ground, And bleeding his young life away through many a

gaping wound.

Dark-haired and slender as a girl, a handsome lad was he,

Despite the pallor of his wounds, each one an agony. A ball had carried off his arm, and zigzag passage

frayed

Into his chest so wild a rent, that, when it was displayed,

I, veteran surgeon that I was, turned white as any maid.

"There is no hope?" he slowly said, noting my changing cheek;

*By kind permission of the author.

I only shook my head; I dared not trust myself to speak.

But in that wordless negative the boy had read his

doom;

And turned about, as best he could, and lay in silent gloom,

Watching the summer sunlight make a glory of the

room.

"My little hero!" said a voice, and then a woman's hand

Lay, like a lily, on his curls; "God grant you selfcommand!"

"Mother!"-how full that thrilling word of pity and alarm!

"You here? my sweetest mother here?" And with his one poor arm

He got about her neck, and drew her down with kisses warm.

"All the long sultry night, when out" (he shuddered as he said)

"On yonder field I lay among the festering heaps of

dead,

With awful faces close to mine, and clots of bloody

hair,

And dead eyes gleaming through the dusk with such a rigid stare,

Through all my pain, O mother mine, I only prayed one prayer:

"Through all my pain (and ne'er I knew what suffering was before)

I only prayed to see your face, to hear your voice, once more;

The cold moon shone into my eyes,-my prayer seemed all in vain."

"My poor deluded boy!" she sobbed; her motherfount of pain

O'erflowing down her darkening cheeks in drops like thunder-rain.

"Accursed be he whose cruel hand has wrought my son such ill!”

The boy sprang upward at the word, and shrieked aloud: "Be still!

You know not what you say. O God! how shall I tell the tale?

How shall I smite her as she stands?" And with a

moaning wail

He prone among the pillows dropped, his visage ashen pale.

"It was a bloody field," he said, at last, like one who

dozed;

"I know not how the day began; I know not how it

closed.

I only know we fought like fiends, begrimed with blood and dust,

And did our duty to a man, as every soldier must; And gave the rebels ball for ball, and paid them thrust for thrust.

"But when our gallant general rode up and down the line,

The sunlight striking on his sword until it flashed like wine,

And cried aloud (God rest his soul!) with such a cheery laugh:

'Charge bayonets, boys! Pitch into them, and scatter them like chaff!'

One half our men were drunk with blood, and mad the other half.

"My veins ran fire. O heaven! hide the horrors of that plain!

We charged upon the rebel ranks and cut them down like grain.

One fair-haired man ran on my steel,-I pierced him through and through;

The blood upspurted from his wound and sprinkled me like dew.

'Twas strange, but as I looked, I thought of Cain and him he slew.

"Some impulse moved me to kneel down and touch him where he fell;

I turned him o'er,-I saw his face,-the sight was worse than hell!

There lay my brother-curse me not!-pierced by my bayonet!"—

O Christ! the pathos of that cry I never shall forget,

Men turned away to hide their tears, for every eye was wet.

"And the hard-featured woman-nurse, a sturdy wench was she,

Dropped down among us in a swoon, from very sympathy.—

I saw his face, the same dear face which once (would we had died

In those old days of innocence!) was ever by my

side,