398 SKETCHES IN RHYME. 



When the skirmish line grew thinner and thinner 



And our army's edges were torn and frayed, 

 Ere the fight worked on to bass from tenor, 



The bullet flew hot that low him laid. 

 Laid him low, in life ne'er knowing 



His love in death on her hearth-stone bled, 

 From rebel bullet her heart's blood flowing ; 



Neither to know the other dead. 



This is the story of Jennie Wade 



And Corporal Skelly, her Boy in Blue ! 



Gettysburg's " Saragossa Maid " 



And her country's soldier brave and true. 



Half hidden by weeping willows, 



At the foot of a wooded hill, 

 In a setting of quiet beauty 



Nestles the old grist-mill. 

 Its roof is seamed and moss-covered. 



And tottering is its wall, 

 And silent and still is the water-wheel 



All compassed in Time's enthrall. 



Slimy and green is the penstock, 



And covered with nettles rank ; 

 Weed-grown the winding mill-race, 



Crevasses cleave its banks. 

 The willow's coquettish branches 



Are kissing the glassy pond, 

 With its splatterdocks in floating flocks. 



And the thicket-lined shore beyond. 



