Page images
PDF
EPUB

For the mighty Gulf is ours,—
The bay is lost and won,

An Empire is lost and won!
Land, if thou yet hast flowers,
Twine them in one more wreath
Of tenderest white and red,
(Twin buds of glory and death!)
For the brows of our brave dead,
For thy Navy's noblest son.

Joy, O Land, for thy sons,
Victors by flood and field!
The traitor walls and guns
Have nothing left but to yield;
(Even now they surrender!)

And the ships shall sail once more,
And the cloud of war sweep on
To break on the cruel shore ;--
But Craven is gone,

He and his hundred are gone.

The flags flutter up and down
At sunrise and twilight dim,
The cannons menace and frown,-
But never again for him,
Him and the hundred.

The Dahlgrens are dumb,
Dumb are the mortars;
Never more shall the drum
Beat to colors and quarters,--
The great guns are silent.

O brave heart and loyal!
Let all your colors dip;-
Mourn him, proud ship!
From main deck to royal.
God rest our Captain,
Rest our lost hundred !

[blocks in formation]

O Mother Land! this weary life
We led, we lead, is 'long of thee;
Thine the strong agony of strife,
And thine the lonely sea.

Thine the long decks all slaughter-sprent,
The weary rows of cots that lie

With wrecks of strong men, marred and rent, 'Neath Pensacola's sky.

And thine the iron caves and dens

Wherein the flame our war-fleet drives;
The fiery vaults, whose breath is men's
Most dear and precious lives!

Ah, ever, when with storm sublime
Dread Nature clears our murky air,
Thus in the crash of falling crime
Some lesser guilt must share.

Full red the furnace fires must glow
That melt the ore of mortal kind :
The mills of God are grinding slow,
But ah, how close they grind !

To-day the Dahlgren and the drum
Are dread Apostles of His Name;
His kingdom here can only come
By chrism of blood and flame.

Be strong already slants the gold
Athwart these wild and stormy skies;
From out this blackened waste, behold
What happy homes shall rise!

But see thou well no traitor gloze,

No striking hands with Death and Shame,
Betray the sacred blood that flows
So freely for thy name.

And never fear a victor foe :

Thy children's hearts are strong and high;
Nor mourn too fondly; well they know
On deck or field to die.

Nor shalt thou want one willing breath,
Though, ever smiling round the brave,
The blue sea bear us on to death,
The green were one wide grave.

HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL.

BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN SIDE.

I SEE before me now a travelling army halting, Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer,

Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising high,

Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily seen,

The numerous camp-fires scattered near and far, some away up on the mountain,

The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering,

And over all the sky-the sky! far, far out of reach, studded, breaking out, the eternal stars.

WALT WHITMAN.

SHERIDAN'S RIDE.

[During General Sheridan's temporary absence, his troops in the Shenandoah Valley were surprised and routed by the Confederates under General Early. The Union commander hurried to the front in time to rally his forces and turn defeat into victory-October 19, 1864.]

UP from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,

Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good broad highway leading down ;

And there, through the flush of the morning light,
A steed as black as the steeds of night
Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight;
As if he knew the terrible need,

He stretched away with his upmost speed;
Hills rose and fell; but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.

Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering South,
The dust, like smoke from the cannon's mouth,
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battlefield calls;

Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.

Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind,

And the steed, like a barque fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire.
But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire;

He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.

The first that the General saw were the groups

Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops; What was done? what to do?—a glance told him both;

Then, striking his spurs, with a terrible oath,

He dashed down the line, 'mid a storm of huzzas, And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because

The sight of the master compelled it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;
By the flash of his eye, and his red nostril's play,
He seemed to the whole great army to say:
"I have brought you Sheridan all the way
From Winchester down to save the day!"

Hurrah, hurrah for Sheridan!

Hurrah, hurrah for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky,-
The American soldiers' Temple of Fame,-
There with the glorious General's name
Be it said in letters both bold and bright:
Here is the steed that saved the day

[ocr errors]

By carrying Sheridan into the fight,

From Winchester,-twenty miles away!"

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »