Pensions all Paid.

N behalf of the ex-union soldiers whose names appear every week in newspaper columns, complaining because they cannot get their pensions, those who to-day are infirm and tottering upon the verge of the grave, without the necessities of life, those who contracted diseases while in the army, and upon their return home would not ask for a pension, and at last are separated from officers and comrades, and are unable to find any of their company or regiment to aid them in obtaining a pension; those whom years ago the nation was proud of, their deeds of bravery were heralded from the hills of Maine to the peaceful waters of the

Pacific, from the British possessions to the gulf; when they marched to the defense of our country they were in the prime of life, their step was then firm and elastic, and their forms erect, now their step is slow and their forms are bowed with disease, hardship, care and old age, their eyes that used to flash at the sounding of the charge are now dim, their raven locks are now streaked with gray, and they will soon join their comrades who fell upon the bloody fields of battle, whose bones lie beneath the soil they died to protect; in behalf of those I insert the following lines:

OLDIERS they have had their pensions,
Drew them twenty years ago,

Drew them when they saved our country
From a bold and deadly foe.

Soldiers they have drew their pensions,
Drew them in the battle's din;

142

PENSIONS ALL PAID.

Drew them when they starved and languished
In some southern prison pen.

Soldiers they have had their pensions,
Drawn when death was raging high;
Where the dust and smoke of battle,
Rose and hid the bright blue sky.

Soldiers they have had their pensions,
Paid with shot and leaden balls,
Bacon brown and hard-tack tough,
When the chilling torrent falls.

Soldiers they have had their pensions,
Money cannot them repay;

Some have homesteads six by four,—
Sacred graves in southern clay.

Soldiers they have had their pensions,
Paid in prison, camp and line;
Paid with hunger woe and death,
Borne with fortitude divine.

Soldiers they have had their pensions,

Paid with English shot and shell,

Paid with murder, wounds and groans, Where our brave defenders fell.

Soldiers they should have their pensions,
From the nation they have saved,
For the years they spent in battle,
For the horrors they have braved.

Can our blood-bought land forget
Its defenders, brave and dear,
Has our sun of justice set?

Is our night of justice near?

Decoration Day.

EST, comrades, rest!

R

Now we stand beside your graves,
For your march on earth is o'er;

No more you'll hear the sentry's call
Upon this changing shore.

CHORUS-For

you we're strewing flowers, Beautiful flowers of May,

O'er the graves of our fallen comrades,

Whose forms have mouldered to

clay.

Rest, comrades, rest!

You were the nation's loyal sons,

You were the true and brave!