Anecdotes of public men; by John W. Forney.

GEORGE H. BOKER. 267
O! let me not outlive the blow
That seals my country's overthrow!
And, lest this woeful end come true,
Men of the North, I turn to you.
Display your vaunted flag once more,
Southward your eager columns pour!
Sound trump and fife and rallying drum;
From every hill and valley come!
Old men, yield up your treasured gold;
Can liberty be priced and sold?
Fair matrons, maids, and tender brides,
Gird weapons to your lovers' sides;
And, though your hearts break at the deed,
Give them your blessing and God-speed;
Then point them to the field of fame,
With words like those of Sparta's dame!
And when the ranks are full and strong,
And the whole army moves along,
A vast result of care and skill,
Obedient to the master will;
And your young hero draws the sword,
And gives the last commanding word
That hurls your strength upon the foeO, let them need no second blow!
Strike, as your fathers struck of old,
Through summer's heat and winter's cold;
Through pain, disaster, and defeat;
Through marches tracked with bloody feet;
Through every ill that could befall
The holy cause that bound them all!
Strike as they struck for liberty!
Strike as they struck to make you free!
Strike for the crown of victory!"' The war-wise hero of the West" was George B. McClellan,
son of the great surgeon, George McClellan, of Philadelphia.
He had been Boker's "dear comrade of the school-boy days,"
and after the first Bull Run was the nation's hope. His victories in West Virginia gave him the opportunity which others
had lost, to be lost by him in his own turn. Boker wrote sev