Works

[1]
(1860-1.)


On starry heights
A bugle wails the long recall;
Derision stirs the deep abyss,
Heaven's ominous silence over all.
Return, return, O eager Hope,...

(March, 1862.)


Some names there are of telling sound,
Whose voweled syllables free
Are pledge that they shall ever live renowned;
Such seem to be...

[12]


Aloft he guards the starry folds
Who is the brother of the star;
The bird whose joy is in the wind
Exultleth in the war.

No painted plume - a sober hue,...

"Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him."

Shall hearts that beat no base retreat
In youth's magnanimous years--
Ignoble hold it, if discreet
When interest tames to fears;...

From "Rammon."

Through storms you reach them and from storms are free.
Afar descried, the foremost drear in hue,
But, nearer, green; and, on the marge, the sea...

The tidings received in the Northern Metropolis.
(April, 1865.)


What mean these peals from every tower,
And crowds like seas that sway?
The cannon reply; they speak the heart...

The Charles-and-Emma seaward sped,
(Named from the carven pair at prow,)
He so smart, and a curly head,
She tricked forth as a bride knows how:
Pretty stem for the port, I trow!
...

Under the Disaster of the Second Manassas

They take no shame for dark defeat
While prizing yet each victory won,
Who fight for the Right through all retreat,
Nor pause until their work is done....

[14]
Sherman's advance through the Carolinas.
(February, 1865.)


So strong to suffer, shall we be
Weak to contend, and break
The sinews of the Oppressor's knee
That grinds upon the neck?...

Strenuous need that head-wind be
From purposed voyage that drives at last
The ship, sharp-braced and dogged still,
Beating up against the blast.

Brigs that figs for market gather,...

By chapel bare, with walls sea-beat
The lichened urns in wilds are lost
About a carved memorial stone
That shows, decayed and coral-mossed,
A form recumbent, swords at feet,...

July, 1863
A Night Piece

No sleep. The sultriness pervades the air
And binds the brain--a dense oppression, such
As tawny tigers feel in matted shades,...

Hail! voyagers, hail!
Whence e'er ye come, where'er ye rove,
No calmer strand,
No sweeter land,
Will e'er ye view, than the Land of Love!

Hail! voyagers, hail!...

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw...

Yon black man-of-war-hawk that wheels in the light
O'er the black ship's white sky-s'l, sunned cloud to the sight,
Have we low-flyers wings to ascend to his height?
No arrow can reach him; nor thought can attain...

Ending in the First Manassas
July, 1861

Did all the lets and bars appear
To every just or larger end,
Whence should come the trust and cheer?
Youth must its ignorant impulse lend--...

He toned the sprightly beam of morning
With twilight meek of tender eve,
Brightness interfused with softness,
Light and shade did weave:
And gave to candor equal place...

(December, 1864.)


Not Kenesaw high-arching,
Nor Allatoona's glen -
Though there the graves lie parching -
Stayed Sherman's miles of men;
From charred Atlanta marching...

Indicative of the passion of the people on the 15th of April, 1865

Goon Friday was the day
Of the prodigy and crime,
When they killed him in his pity,
When they killed him in his prime...

The grass shall never forget this grave.
When homeward footing it in the sun
After the weary ride by rail,
The stripling soldiers passed her door,
Wounded perchance, or wan and pale,...