The fewer these, the sterner task, the greater their guerdon be!
The fairest wreaths of amaranth the fairest hands shall twine
For the brows of our preux chevaliers, the Bayards of the brine!
The "stars and bars" of our sturdy tars as gallantly shall wave
As long shall live in the storied page, or the spirit-stirring stave,
As hath the red cross of St. George or the raven-flag of Thor,
Or flag of the sea, whate'er it be, that ever unfurled to war.
Then flout full high to their parent sky those circled stars of ours,
Where'er the dark-hulled foeman floats, where'er his emblem towers!
Speak for the right, for the truth and light, from the gun's unmuzzled
mouth,
And the fame of the Dane revive again, ye Vikings of the SOUTH!
Richmond Sentinel, March 30, 1863.
The Return.
Three years! I wonder if she'll know me?
I limp a little, and I left one arm
At Petersburg; and I am grown as brown
As the plump chestnuts on my little farm:
And I'm as shaggy as the chestnut burrs--
But ripe and sweet within, and wholly hers.
The darling! how I long to see her!
My heart outruns this feeble soldier pace,
For I remember, after I had left,
A little Charlie came to take my place.
Ah! how the laughing, three-year old, brown eyes--
His mother's eyes--will stare with pleased surprise!
Surely, they will be at the corner watching!
I sent them word that I should come to-night:
The birds all know it, for they crowd around,
Twittering their welcome with a wild delight;
And that old robin, with a halting wing--
I saved her life, three years ago last spring.
Three years! perhaps I am but dreaming!
For, like the pilgrim of the long ago,
I've tugged, a weary burden at my back,
Through summer's heat and winter's blinding snow;
Till now, I reach my home, my darling's breast,
There I can roll my burden off, and rest.
* * * * *
When morning came, the early rising sun
Laid his light fingers on a soldier sleeping--
Where a soft covering of bright green grass
Over two mounds was lightly creeping;
But waked him not: his was the rest eternal,
Where the brown eyes reflected love supernal.
Our Christmas Hymn.
By John Dickson Bruns, M.D., of Charleston, S.C.
"Good-will and peace! peace and good-will!"
The burden of the Advent song,
What time the love-charmed waves grew still
To hearken to the shining throng;
The wondering shepherds heard the strain
Who watched by night the slumbering fleece,
The deep skies echoed the refrain,
"Peace and good-will, good-will and peace!"
And wise men hailed the promised sign,
And brought their birth-gifts from the East,
Dear to that Mother as the wine
That hallowed Cana's bridal feast;
But what to these are myrrh or gold,
And what Arabia's costliest gem,
Whose eyes the Child divine behold,
The blessed Babe of Bethlehem.
"Peace and good-will, good-will and peace!"
They sing, the bright ones overhead;
And scarce the jubilant anthems cease
Ere Judah wails her first-born dead;
And Rama's wild, despairing cry
Fills with great dread the shuddering coast,
And Rachel hath but one reply,
"Bring back, bring back my loved and lost."
So, down two thousand years of doom
That cry is borne on wailing winds,
But never star breaks through the gloom,
No cradled peace the watcher finds;
And still the Herodian steel is driven,
And breaking hearts make ceaseless moan,
And still the mute appeal to heaven
Man answers back with groan for groan.
How shall we keep our Christmas tide?
With that dread past, its wounds agape,
Forever walking by our side,
A fearful shade, an awful shape;
Can any promise of the spring
Make green the faded autumn leaf?
Or who shall say that time will bring
Fair fruit to him who sows but grief?
Wild bells! that shake the midnight air
With those dear tones that custom loves,
You wake no sounds of laughter here,
Nor mirth in all our silent groves;
On one broad waste, by hill or flood,
Of ravaged lands your music falls,
And where the happy homestead stood
The stars look down on roofless halls.
At every board a vacant chair
Fills with quick tears some tender eye,
And at our maddest sports appear
Those well-loved forms that will not die.
We lift the glass, our hand is stayed--
We jest, a spectre rises up--
And weeping, though no word is said,
We kiss and pass the silent cup,
And pledge the gallant friend who keeps
His Christmas-eve on Malvern's height,
And him, our fair-haired boy, who sleeps
Beneath Virginian snows to-night;
While, by the fire, she, musing, broods
On all that was and might have been,
If Shiloh's dank and oozing woods
Had never drunk that crimson stain.
O happy Yules of buried years!
Could ye but come in wonted guise,
Sweet as love's earliest kiss appears,
When looking back through wistful eyes,
Would seem those chimes whose voices tell
His birth-night with melodious burst,
Who, sitting by Samaria's well,
Quenched the lorn widow's life-long thirst.
Ah! yet I trust that all who weep,
Somewhere, at last, will surely find
His rest, if through dark ways they keep
The child-like faith, the prayerful mind;
And some far Christmas morn shall bring
From human ills a sweet release
To loving hearts, while angels sing
"Peace and good-will, good-will and peace!"
Charleston.
Written for the Charleston Courier in 1863.
By Miss E. B. Cheesborough.
Proudly she stands by the crystal sea,
With the fires of hate around her,
But a cordon of love as strong as fate,
With adamant links surround her.
Let them hurl their bolts through the azure sky,
And death-bearing missiles send her,
She finds in our God a mighty shield,
And in heaven a sure defender.
Her past is a page of glory bright,
Her present a blaze of splendor,
You may turn o'er the leaves of the jewell'd tome,
You'll not find the word _surrender_;
For sooner than lay down her trusty arms,
She'd build her own funeral pyre,
And the flames that give her a martyr's fate
Will kindle her glory higher.
How the demons glare as they see her stand
In majestic pride serenely,
And gnash with the impotent rage of hate,
Creeping up slowly, meanly;
While she cries, "Come forth from your covered dens,
All your hireling legions send me,
I'll bare my breast to a million swords,
Whilst God and my sons defend me."
Oh, brave old town, o'er thy sacred form
Whilst the fiery rain is sweeping,
May He whose love is an armor strong
Embrace thee in tender keeping;
And when the red war-cloud has rolled away,
Anoint thee with holy chrism,
And sanctified, chastened, regenerate, true,
Thou surviv'st this fierce baptism.
Gathering Song.
Air--Bonnie Blue Flag
By Annie Chambers Ketchum.
Come, brothers! rally for the right!
The bravest of the brave
Sends forth her ringing battle-cry
Beside the Atlantic wave!
She leads the way in honor's path!
Come, brothers, near and far,
Come rally 'round the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star!
We've borne the Yankee trickery,
The Yankee gibe and sneer,
Till Yankee insolence and pride
Know neither shame nor fear;
But ready now with shot and steel
Their brazen front to mar,
We hoist aloft the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star!
Now Georgia marches to the front,
And close beside her come
Her sisters by the Mexique Sea,
With pealing trump and drum!
Till, answering back from hill and glen
The rallying cry afar,
A NATION hoists the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star!
By every stone in Charleston Bay,
By each beleaguered town,
We swear to rest not, night nor day,
But hunt the tyrants down!
Till, bathed in valor's holy blood
The gazing world afar
Shall greet with shouts the Bonnie Blue
That bears the cross and star!
Christmas.
By Henry Timrod, of South Carolina.
How grace this hallowed day?
Shall happy bells, from yonder ancient spire,
Send their glad greetings to each Christmas fire
Round which the children play?
Alas! for many a moon,
That tongueless tower hath cleaved the Sabbath air,
Mute as an obelisk of ice aglare
Beneath an Arctic noon.
Shame to the foes that drown
Our psalms of worship with their impious drum.
The sweetest chimes in all the land lie dumb
In some far rustic town.
There, let us think, they keep,
Of the dead Yules which here beside the sea
They've ushered in with old-world, English glee,
Some echoes in their sleep.
How shall we grace the day?
With feast, and song, and dance, and antique sports,
And shout of happy children in the courts,
And tales of ghost and fay?
Is there indeed a door
Where the old pastimes, with their lawful noise,
And all the merry round of Christmas joys,
Could enter as of yore?
Would not some pallid face
Look in upon the banquet, calling up
Dread shapes of battle in the wassail cup,
And trouble all the place?
How could we bear the mirth,
While some loved reveller of a year ago
Keeps his mute Christmas now beneath the snow,
In cold Virginian earth?
How shall we grace the day?
Ah! let the thought that on this holy morn
The Prince of Peace--the Prince of Peace was born,
Employ us, while we pray!
Pray for the peace which long
Hath left this tortured land, and haply now
Holds its white court on some far mountain's brow,
There hardly safe from wrong.
Let every sacred fane
Call its sad votaries to the shrine of God,
And, with the cloister and the tented sod,
Join in one solemn strain!
With pomp of Roman form,
With the grave ritual brought from England's shore,
And with the simple faith which asks no more
Than that the heart be warm.
He, who till time shall cease,
Shall watch that earth, where once, not all in vain,
He died to give us peace, will not disdain
A prayer whose theme is--peace.
Perhaps, ere yet the spring
Hath died into the summer, over all
The land, the peace of His vast love shall fall
Like some protecting wing.
Oh, ponder what it means!
Oh, turn the rapturous thought in every way!
Oh, give the vision and the fancy play,
And shape the coming scenes!
Peace in the quiet dales,
Made rankly fertile by the blood of men;
Peace in the woodland, and the lonely glen,
Peace in the peopled vales!
Peace in the crowded town,
Peace in a thousand fields of waving grain,
Peace in the highway and the flowery lane,
Peace on the wind-swept down!
Peace on the furthest seas,
Peace in our sheltered bays and ample streams,
Peace wheresoe'er our starry garland gleams,
And peace in every breeze!
Peace on the whirring marts,
Peace where the scholar thinks, the hunter roams,
Peace, God of Peace! peace, peace in all our homes,
And peace in all our hearts!
A Prayer for Peace.
By S. Teackle Wallis, of Maryland.
Peace! Peace! God of our fathers, grant us Peace!
Unto our cry of anguish and despair
Give ear and pity! From the lonely homes,
Where widowed beggary and orphaned woe
Fill their poor urns with tears; from trampled plains,
Where the bright harvest Thou has sent us rots--
The blood of them who should have garnered it
Calling to Thee--from fields of carnage, where
The foul-beaked vultures, sated, flap their wings
O'er crowded corpses, that but yesterday
Bore hearts of brothers, beating high with love
And common hopes and pride, all blasted now--
Father of Mercies! not alone from these
Our prayer and wail are lifted. Not alone
Upon the battle's seared and desolate track,
Nor with the sword and flame, is it, O God,
That Thou hast smitten us. Around our hearths,
And in the crowded streets and busy marts,
Where echo whispers not the far-off strife
That slays our loved ones; in the solemn halls
Of safe and quiet counsel--nay, beneath
The temple-roofs that we have reared to Thee,
And 'mid their rising incense--God of Peace!
The curse of war is on us. Greed and hate
Hungering for gold and blood; Ambition, bred
Of passionate vanity and sordid lusts,
Mad with the base desire of tyrannous sway
Over men's souls and thoughts, have set their price
On human hecatombs, and sell and buy
Their sons and brothers for the shambles. Priests,
With white, anointed, supplicating hands,
From Sabbath unto Sabbath clasped to Thee,
Burn, in their tingling pulses, to fling down
Thy censers and Thy cross, to clutch the throats
Of kinsmen, by whose cradles they were born,
Or grasp the brand of Herod, and go forth
Till Rachel hath no children left to slay.
The very name of Jesus, writ upon
Thy shrines beneath the spotless, outstretched wings,
Of Thine Almighty Dove, is wrapt and hid
With bloody battle-flags, and from the spires
That rise above them angry banners flout
The skies to which they point, amid the clang
Of rolling war-songs tuned to mock Thy praise.
All things once prized and honored are forgot:
The freedom that we worshipped next to Thee;
The manhood that was freedom's spear and shield;
The proud, true heart; the brave, outspoken word,
Which might be stifled, but could never wear
The guise, whate'er the profit, of a lie;
All these are gone, and in their stead have come
The vices of the miser and the slave--
Scorning no shame that bringeth gold or power,
Knowing no love, or faith, or reverence,
Or sympathy, or tie, or aim, or hope,
Save as begun in self, and ending there.
With vipers like to these, oh! blessed God!
Scourge us no longer! Send us down, once more,
Some shining seraph in Thy glory glad,
To wake the midnight of our sorrowing
With tidings of good-will and peace to men;
And if the star, that through the darkness led
Earth's wisdom then, guide not our folly now,
Oh, be the lightning Thine Evangelist,
With all its fiery, forked tongues, to speak
The unanswerable message of Thy will.
Peace! Peace! God of our fathers, grant us peace!
Peace in our hearts, and at Thine altars; Peace
On the red waters and their blighted shores;
Peace for the 'leaguered cities, and the hosts
That watch and bleed around them and within,
Peace for the homeless and the fatherless;
Peace for the captive on his weary way,
And the mad crowds who jeer his helplessness;
For them that suffer, them that do the wrong
Sinning and sinned against.--O God! for all;
For a distracted, torn, and bleeding land--
Speed the glad tidings! Give us, give us Peace!
The Band in the Pines.
(Heard after Pelham Died.)
By John Esten Cooke.
Oh, band in the pine-wood, cease!
Cease with your splendid call;
The living are brave and noble,
But the dead were bravest of all!
They throng to the martial summons,
To the loud, triumphant strain;
And the dear bright eyes of long-dead friends
Come to the heart again!
They come with the ringing bugle,
And the deep drum's mellow roar;
Till the soul is faint with longing
For the hands we clasp no more!
Oh, band in the pine-wood, cease!
Or the heart will melt in tears,
For the gallant eyes and the smiling lips,
And the voices of old years!
At Fort Pillow.
First published in the Wilmington Journal, April 25, 1864.
You shudder as you think upon
The carnage of the grim report,
The desolation when we won
The inner trenches of the fort.
But there are deeds you may not know,
That scourge the pulses into strife;
Dark memories of deathless woe
Pointing the bayonet and knife.
The house is ashes where I dwelt,
Beyond the mighty inland sea;
The tombstones shattered where I knelt,
By that old church at Pointe Coupee.
The Yankee fiends, that came with fire,
Camped on the consecrated sod,
And trampled in the dust and mire
The Holy Eucharist of God!
The spot where darling mother sleeps,
Beneath the glimpse of yon sad moon,
Is crushed, with splintered marble heaps,
To stall the horse of some dragoon.
God! when I ponder that black day
It makes my frantic spirit wince;
I marched--with Longstreet--far away,
But have beheld the ravage since
The tears are hot upon my face,
When thinking what bleak fate befell
The only sister of our race--
A thing too horrible to tell.
They say that, ere her senses fled,
She rescue of her brothers cried;
Then feebly bowed her stricken head,
Too pure to live thus--so she died.
Two of those brothers heard no plea;
With their proud hearts forever still--
John shrouded by the Tennessee,
And Arthur there at Malvern Hill.
But I have heard it everywhere,
Vibrating like a passing knell;
'Tis as perpetual as the air,
And solemn as a funeral bell.
By scorched lagoon and murky swamp
My wrath was never in the lurch;
I've killed the picket in his camp,
And many a pilot on his perch.
With steady rifle, sharpened brand,
A week ago, upon my steed,
With Forrest and his warrior band,
I made the hell-hounds writhe and bleed.
You should have seen our leader go
Upon the battle's burning marge,
Swooping, like falcon, on the foe,
Heading the gray line's iron charge!
All outcasts from our ruined marts,
We heard th' undying serpent hiss,
And in the desert of our hearts
The fatal spell of Nemesis.
The Southern yell rang loud and high
The moment that we thundered in,
Smiting the demons hip and thigh,
Cleaving them to the very chin.
My right arm bared for fiercer play,
The left one held the rein in slack;
In all the fury of the fray
I sought the white man, not the black.
The dabbled clots of brain and gore
Across the swirling sabres ran;
To me each brutal visage bore
The front of one accursed man.
Throbbing along the frenzied vein,
My blood seemed kindled into song--
The death-dirge of the sacred slain,
The slogan of immortal wrong.
It glared athwart the dripping glaves,
It blazed in each avenging eye--
_The thought of desecrated graves,
And some lone sister's desperate cry!_
From the Rapidan--1864.
A low wind in the pines!
And a dull pain in the breast!
And oh! for the sigh of her lips and eyes--
One touch of the hand I pressed!
The slow, sad lowland wind,
It sighs through the livelong day,
While the splendid mountain breezes blow,
And the autumn is burning away.
Here the pines sigh ever above,
And the broomstraw sighs below;
And far from the bare, bleak, windy fields
Comes the note of the drowsy crow.
There the trees are crimson and gold,
Like the tints of a magical dawn,
And the slender form, in the dreamy days,
By the slow stream rambles on.
Oh, day that weighs on the heart!
Oh, wind in the dreary pines!
Does she think on me 'mid the golden hours,
Past the mountain's long blue lines?
The old house, lonely and still,
By the sad Shenandoah's waves,
Must be touched to-day by the sunshine's gleam,
As the spring flowers bloom on graves.
Oh, sunshine, flitting and sad,
Oh, wind, that forever sighs!
The hall may be bright, but my life is dark
For the sunshine of her eyes!
Song of Our Glorious Southland.
By Mrs. Mary Ware.
From the Southern Field and Fireside.
I.
Oh, sing of our glorious Southland,
The pride of the golden sun!
'Tis the fairest land of flowers
The eye e'er looked upon.
Sing of her orange and myrtle
That glitter like gems above;
Sing of her dark-eyed maidens
As fair as a dream of love.
Sing of her flowing rivers--
How musical their sound!
Sing of her dark green forests,
The Indian hunting-ground.
Sing of the noble nation
Fierce struggling to be free;
Sing of the brave who barter
Their lives for liberty!
II.
Weep for the maid and matron
Who mourn their loved ones slain;
Sigh for the light departed,
Never to shine again:
'Tis the voice of Rachel weeping,
That never will comfort know;
'Tis the wail of desolation,
The breaking of hearts in woe!
III.
Ah! the blood of Abel crieth
For vengeance from the sod!
'Tis a brother's hand that's lifted
In the face of an angry God!
Oh! brother of the Northland,
We plead from our father's grave;
We strike for our homes and altars,
He fought to build and save!
A smouldering fire is burning,
The Southern heart is steeled--
Perhaps 'twill break in dying,
But never will it yield.
Sonnet.
By Paul H. Hayne.
Rise from your gory ashes stern and pale,
Ye martyred thousands! and with dreadful ire,
A voice of doom, a front of gloomy fire,
Rebuke those faithless souls, whose querulous wail
Disturbs your sacred sleep!--"The withering hail
Of battle, hunger, pestilence, despair,
Whatever of mortal anguish man may bear,
We bore unmurmuring! strengthened by the mail
Of a most holy purpose!--then we died!--
Vex not our rest by cries of selfish pain,
But to the noblest measure of your powers
Endure the appointed trial! Griefs defied,
But launch their threatening thunderbolts in vain,
And angry storms pass by in gentlest showers!"
Hospital Duties.
Charleston Courier.
Fold away all your bright-tinted dresses,
Turn the key on your jewels to-day,
And the wealth of your tendril-like tresses
Braid back in a serious way;
No more delicate gloves, no more laces,
No more trifling in boudoir or bower,
But come with your souls in your faces
To meet the stern wants of the hour.
Look around. By the torchlight unsteady
The dead and the dying seem one--
What! trembling and paling already,
Before your dear mission's begun?
These wounds are more precious than ghastly--
Time presses her lips to each scar,
While she chants of that glory which vastly
Transcends all the horrors of war.
Pause here by this bedside. How mellow
The light showers down on that brow!
Such a brave, brawny visage, poor fellow!
Some homestead is missing him now.
Some wife shades her eyes in the clearing,
Some mother sits moaning distressed,
While the loved one lies faint but unfearing,
With the enemy's ball in his breast.
Here's another--a lad--a mere stripling,
Picked up in the field almost dead,
With the blood through his sunny hair rippling
From the horrible gash in the head.
They say he was first in the action:
Gay-hearted, quick-headed, and witty:
He fought till he dropped with exhaustion
At the gates of our fair southern city.
Fought and fell 'neath the guns of that city,
With a spirit transcending his years--
Lift him up in your large-hearted pity,
And wet his pale lips with your tears.
Touch him gently; most sacred the duty
Of dressing that poor shattered hand!
God spare him to rise in his beauty,
And battle once more for his land!
Pass on! it is useless to linger
While others are calling your care;
There is need for your delicate finger,
For your womanly sympathy there.
There are sick ones athirst for caressing,
There are dying ones raving at home,
There are wounds to be bound with a blessing,
And shrouds to make ready for some.
They have gathered about you the harvest
Of death in its ghastliest view;
The nearest as well as the furthest
Is there with the traitor and true.
And crowned with your beautiful patience,
Made sunny with love at the heart,
You must balsam the wounds of the nations,
Nor falter nor shrink from your part.
And the lips of the mother will bless you,
And angels, sweet-visaged and pale,
And the little ones run to caress you,
And the wives and the sisters cry hail!
But e'en if you drop down unheeded,
What matter? God's ways are the best:
You have poured out your life where 'twas needed,
And he will take care of the rest.
They Cry Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace.
By Mrs. Alethea S. Burroughs, of Georgia.
They are ringing peace on my heavy ear--
No peace to my heavy heart!
They are ringing peace, I hear! I hear!
O God! how my hopes depart!
They are ringing peace from the mountain side;
With a hollow voice it comes--
They are ringing peace o'er the foaming tide,
And its echoes fill our homes.
They are ringing peace, and the spring-time blooms
Like a garden fresh and fair;
But our martyrs sleep in their silent tombs--
Do _they_ hear that sound--do they hear?
They are ringing peace, and the battle-cry
And the bayonet's work are done,
And the armor bright they are laying by,
From the brave sire to the son.
And the musket's clang, and the soldier's drill,
And the tattoo's nightly sound;
We shall hear no more, with a joyous thrill,
Peace, peace, they are ringing round!
There are women, still as the stifled air
On the burning desert's track,
Not a cry of joy, not a welcome cheer--
And their brave ones coming back!
There are fair young heads in their morning pride,
Like the lilies pale they bow;
Just a memory left to the soldier's bride--
Ah, God! sustain her now!
There are martial steps that we may not hear!
There are forms we may not see!
Death's muster roll they have answered clear,
_They are free! thank God, they are free!_
Not a fetter fast, nor a prisoner's chain
For the noble army gone--
No conqueror comes o'er the heavenly plain--
Peace, _peace to the dead alone!_
They are ringing peace, but strangers tread
O'er the land where our fathers trod,
And our birthright joys, like a dream, have fled,
And _Thou!_ where art _Thou_, 0 God!
They are ringing peace! _not here, not here,_
Where the victor's mark is set;
Roll back to the North its mocking cheer--
No peace to the Southland yet!