Head-board and foot-board duly placed--
Grassed in the mound between;
Daniel Drouth is the slumberer’s name--
Long may his grave be green!
Quick was his way--a flash and a blow,
Full of his fire was he--
A fire of hell--’tis burnt out now--
Green may his grave long be!
May his grave be green, though he
Was a rebel of iron mould;
Many a true heart--true to the Cause,
Through the blaze of his wrath lies cold.
May his grave be green--still green
While happy years shall run;
May none come nigh to disinter
The--_Buried Gun_.
“Formerly a Slave.”
An idealized Portrait, by E. Vedder, in the Spring
Exhibition of the National Academy, 1865.
The sufferance of her race is shown,
And retrospect of life,
Which now too late deliverance dawns upon;
Yet is she not at strife.
Her children’s children they shall know
The good withheld from her;
And so her reverie takes prophetic cheer--
In spirit she sees the stir
Far down the depth of thousand years,
And marks the revel shine;
Her dusky face is lit with sober light,
Sibylline, yet benign.
The Apparition.
(A Retrospect.)
Convulsions came; and, where the field
Long slept in pastoral green,
A goblin-mountain was upheaved
(Sure the scared sense was all deceived),
Marl-glen and slag-ravine.
The unreserve of Ill was there,
The clinkers in her last retreat;
But, ere the eye could take it in,
Or mind could comprehension win,
It sunk!--and at our feet.
So, then, Solidity’s a crust--
The core of fire below;
All may go well for many a year,
But who can think without a fear
Of horrors that happen so?
Magnanimity Baffled.
“Sharp words we had before the fight;
But--now the fight is done--
Look, here’s my hand,” said the Victor bold,
“Take it--an honest one!
What, holding back? I mean you well;
Though worsted, you strove stoutly, man;
The odds were great; I honor you;
Man honors man.
“Still silent, friend? can grudges be?
Yet am I held a foe?--
Turned to the wall, on his cot he lies--
Never I’ll leave him so!
Brave one! I here implore your hand;
Dumb still? all fellowship fled?
Nay, then, I’ll have this stubborn hand”
He snatched it--it was dead.