Though war-signs fail in time of peace, they say,
    Two awful portents gloom the public mind:
  All Mexico is arming for the fray
    And Colonel Mark McDonald has resigned!
    We know not by what instinct he divined
  The coming trouble—may be, like the steed
    Described by Job, he smelled the fight afar.
  Howe'er it be, he left, and for that deed
    Is an aspirant to the G.A.R.
  When cannon flame along the Rio Grande
  A citizen's commission will be handy.