LATER AND LAST.

A flag came out at early morn

Bringing surrender. From their towers

Floats out the banner late their scorn.

In Dover, hut and house are full

Of rebels dead or dying.

The national flag is flying

From the crammed court-house pinnacle.

Great boat-loads of our wounded go

To-day to Nashville. The sleet-winds blow;

But all is right: the fight is won,

The winter-fight for Donelson.

Hurrah!

The spell of old defeat is broke,

The Habit of victory begun;

Grant strikes the war's first sounding stroke

At Donelson.

For lists of killed and wounded, see

The morrow's dispatch: to-day‘ tis victory.

The man who read this to the crowd

Shouted as the end he gained;

And though the unflagging tempest rained,

They answered him aloud.

And hand grasped hand, and glances met

In happy triumph; eyes grew wet.

O, to the punches brewed that night

Went little water. Windows bright

Beamed rosy on the sleet without,

And from the deep street came the frequent shout;

While some in prayer, as these in glee,

Blessed heaven for the winter-victory.

But others were who wakeful laid

In midnight beds, and early rose,

And, feverish in the foggy snows,

Snatched the damp paper — wife and maid.

The death-list like a river flows

Down the pale sheet,

And there the whelming waters meet.

Ah God! may Time with happy haste

Bring wail and triumph to a waste,

And war be done;

The battle flag-staff fall athwart

The curs'd ravine, and wither; naught

Be left of trench or gun;

The bastion, let it ebb away,

Washed with the river bed; and Day

In vain seek Donelson.