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Poor, withered face, that yet was once so fair,
Grown ashen-old in the wild fires of lust -
Thy star-like beauty, dimm'd with earthly dust,
Yet breathing of a purer native air; -...

Through the pauses of thy fervid singing
Fell crystal sound
That thy fingers from the keys were flinging
Lightly around:
I felt the vine-like harmonies close clinging
About my soul;...

For them that hope in Thee.... Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy face, from the disturbance of men.

Thou shalt protect them in Thy tabernacle from the contradiction of tongues.
...

Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
Shatters the rainy wind. A myriad leaves,
Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air.
Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.
...

Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
Shatters the windy rain. A thousand leaves,
Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air,
Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.
...

Over the mossy walls,
Above the slumbering fields
Where yet the ground no fruitage yields,
Save as the sunlight falls
In dreams of harvest-yellow,
What voice remembered calls, -...

Now the last wreath of snow
That melts, in mist exhales
White aspiration, and our deep-voiced gales
In chorus chant the measured march of spring,
Whom griefs of life and death
Are burdening!...

I

Ah, who shall sound the hero's funeral march?
And what shall be the music of his dirge?
No single voice may chant the Nation's grief,
No formal strain can give its woe relief....

A youth unto herself Grief took,
Whom everything of joy forsook,
And men passed with denying head,
Saying: "'T were better he were dead."

Grief took him, and with master-touch...

Her moods are like the fountain's, changing ever,
That spouts aloft a sudden, watery dome,
Only to fall again in shattering foam,
Just where the wedded jets themselves dissever,...

[CHANCELLORSVILLE, MAY, 1863]

I

The sun had set;
The leaves with dew were wet:
Down fell a bloody dusk
On the woods, that second of May,
Where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of prey,...

A thousand times I would have hoped,
A thousand times protested;
But still, as through the night I groped,
My torch from me was wrested,
and wrested.

How often with a succoring cup...

"There, on the left!" said the colonel: the battle had shuddered and faded away,
Wraith of a fiery enchantment that left only ashes and blood-sprinkled clay -...

The sea goes up; the sky comes down.
Oh, can you spy the ancient town, -
The granite hills so hard and gray,
That rib the land behind the bay?
O ye ho, boys! Spread her wings!...

The sea goes up; the sky comes down.
Oh, can you spy the ancient town, -
The granite hills so green and gray,
That rib the land behind the bay?
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!...

Soft-throated South, breathing of summer's ease
(Sweet breath, whereof the violet's life is made!)
Through lips moist-warm, as thou hadst lately stayed
'Mong rosebuds, wooing to the cheeks of these...

Soft-throated South, breathing of summer's ease
(Sweet breath, whereof the violet's life is made!)
Through lips moist-warm, as thou hadst lately stayed
'Mong rosebuds, wooing to the cheeks of these...

Strike hands, young men!
We know not when
Death or disaster comes,
Mightier than battle-drums
To summon us away.
Death bids us say farewell
To all we love, nor stay...

Birds that like vanishing visions go winging,
White, white in the flame of the sunset's burning,
Fly with the wild spray the billows are flinging,
Blend, blend with the nightfall, and fade, unreturning!
...

Do you remember, my sweet, absent son,
How in the soft June days forever done
You loved the heavens so warm and clear and high;
And when I lifted you, soft came your cry, -...