Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne :: :: University of Virginia Library

My Mother-land! thou wert the first to fling
Thy virgin flag of freedom to the breeze,
The first to front along thy neighboring seas,
The imperious foeman's power;
But long before that hour,
While yet, in false and vain imagining,
Thy sister nations would not own their foe,
And turned to jest thy warnings, though the low,
Portentous mutterings, that precede the throe
Of earthquakes, burdened all the ominous air;
While yet they paused in scorn,
Of fatal madness born,
Thou, oh, my mother! like a priestess bless'd
With wondrous vision of the things to come,
Thou couldst not calmly rest
Secure and dumb—
But from thy borders, with the sounds of drum
And trumpet rose the warrior-call,—
(A voice to thrill, to startle, to appall!)—
“Prepare! the time grows ripe to meet our doom!”
Thy careless sisters frowned, or mocking said:
“We see no threatening tempest overhead,
Only a few pale clouds, the west wind's breath
Will sweep away, or melt in watery death.”

“Prepare! the time grows ripe to meet our doom!”
Alas! it was not till the thunder-boom
Of shell and cannon shocked the vernal day,
Which shone o'er Charleston Bay,
That startled, roused, the last scale fallen away
From blinded eyes, our South, erect and proud,
Fronted the issue, and, though lulled too long,
Felt her great spirit nerved, her patriot valor strong.

Death! What of death?—
Can he who once drew honorable breath
In liberty's pure sphere,
Foster a sensual fear,
When death and slavery meet him face to face,

Saying: “Choose thou between us; here, the grace
Which follows patriot martyrdom, and there,
Black degradation, haunted by despair.”

The very thought brings blushes to the cheek!
I hear all 'round about me murmurs run,
Hot murmurs, but soon merging into one
Soul-stirring utterance—hark! the people speak:

“Our course is righteous, and our aims are just!
Behold, we seek
Not merely to preserve for noble wives
The virtuous pride of unpolluted lives,
To shield our daughters from the servile hand,
And leave our sons their heirloom of command,
In generous perpetuity of trust;
Not only to defend those ancient laws,
Which Saxon sturdiness and Norman fire
Welded forevermore with freedom's cause,
And handed scathless down from sire to sire—
Nor yet our grand religion, and our Christ,
Unsoiled by secular hates, or sordid harms,
(Though these had sure sufficed
To urge the feeblest Sybarite to arms)—
But more than all, because embracing all,
Ensuring all, self-government, the boon
Our patriot statesmen strove to win and keep,
From prescient Pinckney and the wise Calhoun
To him, that gallant knight,
The youngest champion in the Senate hall,
Who, led and guarded by a luminous fate,
His armor, Courage, and his war-horse, Right,
Dared through the lists of eloquence to sweep
Against the proud Bois Guilbert of debate!

“There's not a tone from out the teeming past,
Uplifted once in such a cause as ours,
Which does not smite our souls
In long reverberating thunder-rolls.
From the far mountain-steeps of ancient story,
Above the shouting, furious Persian mass,
Millions arrayed in pomp of Orient powers,
Rings the wild war-cry of Leonidas
Pent in his rugged fortress of the rock;
And o'er the murmurous seas,
Compact of hero-faith and patriot bliss
(For conquest crowns the Athenian's hope at last),
Come the clear accents of Miltiades,
Mingled with cheers that drown the battle-shock
Beside the wave-washed strand of Salamis.

“Where'er on earth the self-devoted heart
Hath been by worthy deeds exalted thus,
We look for proud exemplars; yet for us
It is enough to know
Our fathers left us freemen; let us show
The will to hold our lofty heritage,
The patient strength to act our father's part.

“Yea! though our children's blood
Rain 'round us in a crimson-swelling flood,

Why pause or falter?—that red tide shall bear
The ark that holds our shrinèd liberty,
Nearer, and yet more near
Some height of promise o'er the ensanguined sea.

“At last, the conflict done,
The fadeless meed of final victory won,
Behold! emerging from the rifted dark
Athwart a shining summit high in heaven,
That delegated Ark!
No more to be by vengeful tempests driven,
But poised upon the sacred mount, whereat
The congregated nations gladly gaze,
Struck by the quiet splendor of the rays
That circle freedom's blood-bought Ararat!”

Thus spake the people's wisdom; unto me
Its voice hath come, a passionate augury!
Methinks the very aspect of the world
Changed to the mystic music of its hope.
For, lo! about the deepening heavenly cope
The stormy cloudland banners all are furled,
And softly borne above
Are brooding pinions of invisible love,
Distilling balm of rest and tender thought
From fairy realms, by fairy witchery wrought:
O'er the hushed ocean steal ethereal gleams
Divine as light that haunts an angel's dreams;
And universal nature, wheresoever
My vision strays—o'er sky, and sea, and river—
Sleeps, like a happy child,
In slumber undefiled,
A premonition of sublimer days,
When war and warlike lays
At length shall cease,
Before a grand Apocalypse of Peace,
Vouchsafed in mercy to all human kind—
A prelude and a prophecy combined!

Fort Sumter, March, 1861.

Vide the Senatorial debate on “Foote's Resolution,” in 1832.

ODE.

[In honor of the bravery and sacrifices of the soldiers of the South.]

With bayonets slanted in the glittering light,
With solemn roll of drums,
With star-lit banners rustling wings of might,
The knightly concourse comes!
The flower and fruit of all the tropic lands,
The unsheathed brightness of their stainless brands
Blazing in courtly hands,
One glorious soul within those thousand eyes,
One aim, one hope, one impulse from the skies,
While silent, awed and dumb,
A nation waits the end in dread surmise,
They come! they come!

The summer flaunts her vivid leaves above
The unwonted scene,
The summer heavens embrace with smiles of love
The hill-slopes green;
Far in the uppermost realms of silent air
Peace sits enthroned and happy, but on earth
The cymbals clash, and the shrill trumpets blare,
And Death, like some grim mower on the plain,
Topped by the ripened grain,
Whets his keen scythe, and shakes it fearfully!

Our serried lines march sternly to the front,
Where decked as if they rose to celebrate
A joyous festal morn,
In glistening pomp and splendid blazonry,
Slow moving as in scorn
Of those weak bands that guard the pass below,
Come gorgeous, flushed and proud, the cohorts of the foe!

They wheel! deploy, are stationed, down the cleft
Of the long gorge their signal thunders run!
A sullen answer echoes from our left
And the great fight's begun!
O! who shall picture the immortal fray?
Our Southern host that day
Breasted the onset of the invading sea
With wills of adamant; but stern-weighted strength,
Like waves by some infernal alchemy
Hardened, transformed to solid metal, burning
At white heat as they struck, and aye returning
Hotter and more resistless than before
(All flecked atop with foam of human gore),
Pierced here and there our crumbling ranks at length,
Which as a mountain shore,
Rock-ribbed and iron founded, still had stood,
And outward hurled
In bloody sprayings, that tremendous flood
Which, with wild charge and furious brunt on brunt.
Had dashed against us like a fiery world!

Unceasing still poured on the fateful tide,
And plumèd victory ever seemed to ride
On the red billows of the northland war!
Our glory and pride
Had fallen,—fallen in the terrible van,—
Like wine the life-streams ran;
“Back! back!” cried one (it was the voice of Bee,
Lifted in wrath and bitter agony),
“We're driven backward!” unto whom there came
An answer, like the rush of steady flame,
'Twixt ribs of iron, “We will give them yet
The bayonet!
The sharp edge of the Southern bayonet!”
At which the other's face flushed up, and caught
Light like a warrior-angel's, and he sprang
To the front rank, while swift as passionate thought
Leaped forth his sword, and this high summons rang:
“See! see! where fixed and grand,
Like a stone wall the braves of Jackson stand!
Forward!” and on he rushed with quivering breath,
On to his Spartan death!

Unceasing still poured down the fateful tide,
And plumèd victory ever seemed to ride
O'er the red billows of the northland war!
When faint and far,
Far on our left there rose a sound that thrilled
All souls, and even the battle's thunderous pulse
(Or so we deemed) for briefest space was stilled;
A sound, low hissing as a meteor-star,
But gathering depth of volume, till it burst
In one great flamelike cheer,
That seemed to rend and lift the cloud accurst,
The poisonous-clinging cloud
That wrapped us in its shroud,

While wounded men leaped on their feet to hear,
And dying men upraised their eyes to see
How on the conflict's lowering canopy,
Dawned the first rainbow hues of victory!

Have you watched the condor leap
From his proud Andean rock,
And with hurtling pinions sweep
On the valley-pasturing flock?
Have you watched an eygre vast
On the rude September blast
Roll adown with curvèd crest
O'er the low sands of the West?
O! thus and thus they came
(Four thousand men and more),
Hearts, faces,—all aflame,
And the grandeur of their wrath
Whirled the tyrant from their path
As the frightened rack is driven
By the unleashed winds in heaven;
Then, maddened, tossed about
In a reckless, hopeless rout,
The Northern army fled
O'er their dying and their dead,
And the Southern steel flashed out,
And their vengeful points were red
With the hot heart's tide that flowed
Where they sabred as they rode!
And the news sped on apace
(Where the Rulers, in their place,
Sat jubilant, one and all),
Till a shadow seemed to fall
Round their joyance like a pall,
And the inmost senate-hall
Pealed an echo of disgrace!
At the set of July's sun
They stood quivering and undone,
For the eagle standards waned and the Southern “stars” had won!

Thus loomed serene and large
Upon that desperate contest's lurid marge
Our orb of destiny; millions of hearts
Throb with old bold exultation,
Till there starts
From mountain fastness, and from waving plain,
From wooded swamp and mist-encircled main,
From hamlet, city, field,
And the rich midland weald,
The spirit of the antique hero time!
O! 'twas a sight sublime
To watch the upheaval of the popular soul,
The stormy gathering,—the majestic roll
Upward of its wild forces, by the awe
Of Right and Justice steadied into law!
Faith lent our cause its heavenly consecration!
Hope its omnipotent might!
And Fame stood ready, with her flowers of light,
To crown alike the living and the dead,
While in the broadening firmament o'erhead
We seemed to read the fiat of our fate,
“Ye are baptized,—a Nation!
Amongst the freest, free,—amongst the mightiest, great!”
An ominous hush! and then the scattered clouds
In the dark northern heaven
(Clouds of a deadlier strife),
Urged by the poison wind
Of rage and rapine, sullenly combined,
Charged with the bolts of ruin! what were shrouds,
Crimsoned with gore? the widowed spirit riven?
The desecration of God's gift of life,
To that one thought (three fiery strands uniting,
Hot from a Hadéan loom),
“Conquest!” “Revenge!” Supremacy?” The blighting
Of untold promises, the grief, the gloom,
The desolate madness and the anguish blind,
All spreading on and on
From murdered sire to subjugated son,
Were less than nothing to the arrogant pride

Which treaties, compacts, honor, laws defied,
And aimed above the wrecks of temple and tower
To rear the symbols of its merciless power!

Four deadly years we fought,
Ringed by a girdle of unfaltering fire,
That coiled and hissed in lessening circles nigher.
Blood dyed the Southern wave;
From ocean border to calm inland river,
There was no pause, no peace, no respite ever.
Blood of our bravest brave
Drenched in a scarlet rain the western lea,
Swelled the hoarse waters of the Tennessee,
Incarnadined the gulfs, the lakes, the rills,
And from a hundred hills
Steamed in a mist of slaughter to the skies,
Shutting all hope of heaven from mortal eyes.
The Beaufort blooms were withered on the stem;
The fair gulf city in a single night
Lost her imperial diadem;
And wheresoe'er men's troubled vision sought,
They viewed MIGHT towering o'er the humbled crest of RIGHT!

But for a time, but for a time, O God!
The innate forces of our knightly blood
Rallied, and by the mount, the fen, the flood,
Upraised the tottering standards of our race.
O grand Virginia! though thy glittering glaive
Lies sullied, shattered in a ruthless grave,
How it flashed once! They dug their trenches deep
(The implacable foe), they ranged their lines of wrath;
But watchful ever on the imminent path
Thy steel-clad genius stood;
North, South, East, West,—they strove to pierce thy shield;
Thou would'st not yield!
Until,—unconquered, yea, unconquered still,
Nature's weakened forces answered not thy will,
And gored with wound on wound,
Thy fainting limbs and forehead sought the ground;
And with thee the young nation fell, a pall
Solemn and rayless, covering one and all!
God's ways are marvellous; here we stand to-day
Discrowned, and shorn, in wildest disarray,
The mock of earth! yet never shone the sun
On sterner deeds, or nobler victories won.
Not in the field alone; ah, come with me
To the dim bivouac by the winter's sea;
Mark the fair sons of courtly mothers crouch
O'er flickering fires; but gallant still, and gay
As on some bright parade; or mark the couch
In reeking hospitals, whereon is laid
The latest scion of a line perchance,
Whose veins were royal; close your blurred romance,
Blurred by the dropping of a maudlin tear,
And watch the manhood here;
That firm but delicate countenance,
Distorted sometimes by an awful pang,
Born in meek patience; when the trumpets rang
“To horse!” but yester-morn, that ardent boy

Sprung to his charger, thrilled with hope and joy
To the very finger-tips, and now he lies,
The shadows deepening in those falcon eyes,
But calm and undismayed,
As if the death that chills him, brow and breast,
Were some fond bride who whispered, “Let us rest!”

Enough! 'tis over! the last gleam of hope
Hath melted from our mournful horoscope,
Of all, of all bereft,
Only to us are left
Our buried heroes and their matchless deeds;
These cannot pass; they hold the vital seeds
Which in some far, untracked, unvisioned hour
May burst to vivid bud and glorious flower.
Meanwhile, upon the nation's broken heart
Her martyrs sleep. O! dearer far to her,
Than if each son, a wreathèd conqueror,
Rode in triumphant state
The loftiest crest of fate;
O! dearer far, because outcast and low,
She yearns above them in her awful woe.
One spring its tender blooms
Hath lavished richly by those hallowed tombs;
One summer its imperial largess spread
Along our heroes' bed;
One autumn walling with funeral blast,
The withered leaves and pallid dust amassed
All round about them, till bleak winter now
Hangs hoar-frost on the grasses, and the bough
In dreary woodlands seems to thrill and start,
Thrill to the anguish of the wind that raves
Across those lonely desolated graves!

CHARLESTON.

Calmly beside her tropic strand,
An empress, brave and loyal,
I see the watchful city stand,
With aspect sternly royal;
She knows her mortal foe draws near,
Armored by subtlest science,
Yet deep, majestical, and clear,
Rings out her grand defiance.
Oh, glorious is thy noble face,
Lit up by proud emotion,
And unsurpassed thy stately grace,
Our warrior Queen of Ocean!

First from thy lips the summons came,
Which roused our South to action,
And, with the quenchless force of flame,
Consumed the demon, Faction;
First, like a rush of sovereign wind,
That rends dull waves asunder,
Thy prescient warning struck the blind,
And woke the deaf with thunder;
They saw, with swiftly kindling eyes,
The shameful doom before them,
And heard, borne wild from Northern skies,
The death-gale hurtling o'er them:

Wilt thou, whose virgin banner rose,
A morning star of splendor,
Quail when the war-tornado blows,
And crouch in base surrender?
Wilt thou, upon whose loving breast
Our noblest chiefs are sleeping,
Yield thy dead patriots' place of rest
To scornful alien keeping?
No! while a life-pulse throbs for fame,
Thy sons will gather round thee,
Welcome the shot, the steel, the flame,
If honor's hand hath crowned thee.

Then fold about thy beauteous form
The imperial robe thou wearest,
And front with regal port the storm
Thy foe would dream thou fearest;
If strength, and will, and courage fail
To cope with ruthless numbers,

And thou must bend, despairing, pale,
Where thy last hero slumbers,
Lift the red torch, and light the fire
Amid those corpses gory,
And on thy self-made funeral pyre,
Pass from the world to glory.

STUART.

A cup of your potent “mountain dew,”
By the camp-fire's ruddy light;
Let us drink to a spirit as leal and true
As ever drew blade in fight,
And dashed on the foeman's lines of steel,
For God and his people's right.

By heaven! it seems that his very name
Embodies a thought of fire;
It strikes on the ear with a sense of flame,
And the life-blood boundeth higher,
While the pulses leap and the brain expands,
In the glow of a grand desire.

Hark! in the day-dawn's misty gray,
Our bugles are ringing loud,
And hot for the joy of a coming fray,
Our souls wax fierce and proud.
As we list for the word that shall launch us forth,
Like bolts from the mountain-cloud.

We list for the word, and it comes at length,
In a strain so mighty and clear,
That we rise to the sound with an added strength,
And our hearts are glad to hear,
And a stir, like the breath of the boding storm
Thrills through us, from van to rear.

Then, with the rush of the whirlwind freed,
We rush, by a secret way,
And merry on sabre, and helmet, and steed,
Do the autumn sunbeams play,
And the devil must sharpen his keenest wits,
To rescue “his own” to-day.

Ho, ye who dwell in the fertile vales
Of the pleasant land of Penn,
Who feast on the fat of her fruitful dales,
How little ye dream or ken
That the southern Murat has bared his brand,
That the Stuart rides again.

“Close up, close up! we have travelled long,
But a jovial night's in store,
A night of wassail, and wit, and song,
In yon cosy town before.
Quick, sergeant! spur to the front in haste,
And knock at the mayor's door.”

Behold, he comes with a ghost-like grace,
And his knee-joints out of tune;
And the cold, cold sweat runs down his face,
I' the light of the autumn moon.
While his husky voice, like an ancient crone's,
Dies in a hollow croon.

He cannot speak; but his buxom dame,
With her trembling daughters nigh,
Shrieks out, “Oh, honor their virgin fame,
Pass the poor maidens by.”
(Whereon, with a grievous heave and sob,
She paused in her speech—to cry.)

“Rise up! we leave to the churlish brood
Our vengeance hath sought ere now,
The fame which springs from the ruthless mood
That crimsons a woman's brow;
For sons are we of a kindly race,
And bound by a knightly vow.

“Rise up! we war with the strong alone;
For where was the caitiff found,
To sport with an outraged woman's moan,
Where the southern trumpets sound?
[OMITTED]
Enough! while I speak of the past, my lad,

There's coming—(hush! lean thee near!)—
There's coming a raid that shall drive them mad,
And cover their land with fear;
And you and I, by the blessing of God,
Ay, you and I shall be there.”

BEYOND THE POTOMAC.

They slept on the field which their valor had won,
But arose with the first early blush of the sun,
For they knew that a great deed remained to be done,
When they passed o'er the river.

They arose with the sun, and caught life from his light,
Those giants of courage, those Anaks in fight,
And they laughed out aloud in the joy of their might,
Marching swift for the river.

On, on! like the rushing of storms through the hills;
On, on! with a tramp that is firm as their wills;
And the one heart of thousands grows buoyant, and thrills,
At the thought of the river.

Oh, the sheen of their swords! the fierce gleam of their eyes!
It seemed as on earth a new sunlight would rise,
And, king-like, flash up to the sun in the skies,
O'er their path to the river.

But their banners, shot-scarred, and all darkened with gore,
On a strong wind of morning streamed wildly before,
Like wings of death-angels swept fast to the shore,
The green shore of the river.

As they march, from the hillside, the hamlet, the stream,
Gaunt throngs whom the foemen had manacled, teem,
Like men just aroused from some terrible dream,
To cross sternly the river.

They behold the broad banners, blood-darkened, yet fair,
And a moment dissolves the last spell of despair,
While a peal, as of victory, swells on the air,
Rolling out to the river.

And that cry, with a thousand strange echoings, spread,
Till the ashes of heroes were thrilled in their bed.
And the deep voice of passion surged up from the dead,
“Ay, press on to the river!”

On, on! like the rushing of storms through the hills,
On, on! with a tramp that is firm as their wills;
And the one heart of thousands grows buoyant and thrills,
As they pause by the river.

Then the wan face of Maryland, haggard and worn,
At this sight lost the touch of its aspect forlorn,
And she turned on the foemen, full-statured in scorn,
Pointing stern to the river.

And Potomac flowed calmly, scarce heaving her breast,
With her low-lying billows all bright in the west,
For a charm as from God lulled the waters to rest
Of the fair rolling river.

Passed! passed! the glad thousands march safe through the tide;
Hark, foeman, and hear the deep knell of your pride,
Ringing weird-like and wild, pealing up from the side
Of the calm-flowing river.

'Neath a blow swift and mighty the tyrant may fall;
Vain, vain! to his gods swells a desolate call;
Hath his grave not been hollowed, and woven his pall,
Since they passed o'er the river?

BEAUREGARD'S APPEAL.

Yea! since the need is bitter,
Take down those sacred bells,
Whose music speaks of hallowed joys,
And passionate farewells!

But ere ye fall dismantled,
Ring out, deep bells! once more:
And pour on the waves of the passing wind
The symphonies of yore.

Let the latest born be welcomed
By pealings glad and long,
Let the latest dead in the churchyard bed
Be laid with solemn song.

And the bells above them throbbing,
Should sound in mournful tone,
As if, in grief for a human death,
They prophesied their own.

Who says 'tis a desecration
To strip the temple towers,
And invest the metal of peaceful notes
With death-compelling powers?

A truce to cant and folly!
Our people's ALL at stake,
Shall we heed the cry of the shallow fool,
Or pause for the bigot's sake?

Then crush the struggling sorrow!
Feed high your furnace fires,
And mould into deep-mouthed guns of bronze,
The bells from a hundred spires.

Methinks no common vengeance,
No transient war eclipse,
Will follow the awful thunder-burst
From their adamantine lips.

A cause like ours is holy,
And it useth holy things;
While over the storm of a righteous strife,
May shine the angel's wings.

Where'er our duty leads us,
The grace of God is there,
And the lurid shrine of war may hold
The Eucharist of prayer.

THE SUBSTITUTE.

[_]

[The crime of McNeil, perpetrated in one of our Western States, has now met with the reprobation of Christendom. But at the time the following verses—cast, as the reader will perceive, in a partly dramatic mould—were composed, ten Confederates had been hastily executed by order of a Federal commander, on a charge afterwards proven to be false; and one of the unfortunate victims (a mere youth) voluntarily sacrificed his life to rescue his friend, a man advanced in years and with a large family.

In the poem this latter individual is represented as unaware of the youth's resolve until it has been executed.

Between the first and second parts of the piece, about twenty-four hours are supposed to have elapsed.]

1. PART I.

[Place—A Federal Prison—A Confederate chained, and a Visitor, his Friend.]

“How say'st thou? die to-morrow? Oh! my friend!
The bitter, bitter doom!
What hast thou done to tempt this ghastly end—
This death of shame and gloom?”

“What done? Do tyrants wait for guilty deeds,
To find or prove a crime—
They, who have cherished hatred's fiery seeds:
Hot for the harvest-time?

“A sneer! a smile! vague trifles light as air—
Some foolish, false surmise—
Lead to the harrowing drama of despair
Wherein—the victim dies!

“And I shall perish! Comrade, heed me not!
For thus my tears must start—
Not for the misery of my blasted lot,
But hers who holds my heart!

“And theirs, the flowers that wreathe my humble hearth
With roseate blush and bloom.

To-morrow eve, they stand alone on earth,
Beside their father's tomb!

“There's Blanche, my serious beauty, lithe and tall,
With pensive eyes and brow—
There's Kate, the tenderest darling of them all,
Whose kisses thrill me now!

“There's little Rose, the sunshine of our days—
A tricky, gladsome sprite—
How vividly come back her winsome ways,
Her laughters, and delight!

“And my brave boy—my Arthur! Did his arm
Second his will and brain,
I should not groan beneath this iron charm,
Clasping my chains in vain!

“Oh, Christ! and hath it come to this? Will none
Ward off the ghastly end?
And yet methinks I heard the voice of one
Who called the old man—Friend!

“May all the curses caught from deepest hell
Light on the blood-stained knave
Who laughs to hear the patriot's funeral knell,
Blaspheming o'er his grave!

“Away! Such dreams are madness! My pale lips
Had best besiege Heaven's ear,
But in the turmoil of my mind's eclipse,
No thought, no wish is clear.

“Dear friend, forgive me! Sorrow, frenzy, ire—
My bosom's raging guests—
By turn have whelmed me in their floods of fire,
Fierce passions, swift unrests.

“And now, farewell! The sentry's warning hand,
Taps at my prison bars.
We part, but not forever! There's a land,
Comrade, beyond the stars!”

“Yea!” said the youth, and o'er his kindling face
A saint-like glory came,
As if some prescient Angel, breathing grace,
Had touched it into flame.

2. PART II.

[Place—The same Prison. Persons—Confederate Prisoner, together with McNeil and the Jailer.]

The hours sink slow to sunset! Suddenly
Rose a deep, gathering hum;
And o'er the measured stride of soldiery
Rolled out the muffled drum!

The prisoner started! crushed a stifling sigh,
Then rose erect and proud!
Scorn's lightning quivering in his stormy eye,
'Neath the brow's thunder-cloud!

And girding round his limbs and stalwart breast
Each iron chain and ring,
He stood sublime, imperial, self-possessed—
And haughty as a king!

The “dead march” wails without the prison gate
Up the calm evening sky;
And ruffian jestings, born of ruffian hate,
Make loud, unmeet reply!

The hired bravoes, whose pitiless features pale
In front of armed men,
But whose magnanimous courage will not quail
Where none can strike again!

The “dead march” wails without the prison wall,
Up the calm evening sky:
And timed to the dread dirge's rise and fall,
Move the fierce murderers by!

They passed; and wondering at his doom deferred,
The captive's lofty fire
Sank in his heart, by torturing memories stirred
Of husband, and of sire!

But hark! the clash of bolt and opening door!
The tramp of hostile heel!
When lo! upon the darkening prison floor,
Glared the false hound—McNeil.

And next him, like a bandog scenting blood,
Roused from his drunken ease,
The grimy, low-browed jailer glowering stood,
Clanking his iron keys.

“Quick! jailer! strike yon rebel's fetters off,
And let the old fool see
What ransom [with a low and bitter scoff].
What ransom sets him free.”

As the night traveller in a land of foes
The warning instinct feels,
That through the treacherous dimness and repose
A shrouded horror steals.

So, at these veilèd words, the captive's soul
Shook with a solemn dread,
And ghostly voices, prophesying dole,
Moaned faintly overhead.

His limbs are freed! his swarthy, scowling guide
Leads through the silent town,
Where from dim casements, black with wrathful pride,
Stern eyes gleam darkly down.

They halted where the woodland showered around
Dank leaflets on the sod,
And all the air seemed vocal with the sound
Of wild appeals to God.

Heaped, as if common carrion, in the gloom,
Nine mangled corpses lay—
All speechless now—but with what tongues of doom
Reserved for judgment day.

And near them, but apart, one youthful form
Pressed a fair upland slope,
O'er whose white brow a sunbeam flickering warm,
Played like a heavenly hope.

There, with the same grand look which yester-night
That face at parting wore,
The self-made martyr in the sunset light
Slept on his couch of gore.

The sunset waned; the wakening forest waved,
Struck by the north wind's moan,
While he, whose life this matchless death has saved
Knelt by the corse—alone.

BATTLE OF CHARLESTON HARBOR,

April 7, 1863.

Two hours, or more, beyond the prime of a blithe April day,
The Northmen's mailed “Invincibles” steamed up fair Charleston Bay;
They came in sullen file, and slow, low-breasted on the wave,
Black as a midnight front of storm, and silent as the grave.

A thousand warrior-hearts beat high as these dread monsters drew
More closely to the game of death across the breezeless blue,
And twice ten thousand hearts of those who watch the scene afar,
Thrill in the awful hush that bides the battle's broadening star.

Each gunner, moveless by his gun, with rigid aspect stands,
The reedy linstocks firmly grasped in bold, untrembling hands,
So moveless in their marble calm, their stern, heroic guise,
They look like forms of statued stone with burning human eyes!

Our banners on the outmost walls, with stately rustling fold,
Flash back from arch and parapet the sunlight's ruddy gold—
They mount to the deep roll of drums, and widely echoing cheers,
And then, once more, dark, breathless, hushed, wait the grim cannoneers.

Onward, in sullen file, and slow, low-glooming on the wave,
Near, nearer still, the haughty fleet glides silent as the grave,
When shivering the portentous calm o'er startled flood and shore,
Broke from the sacred Island Fort the thunder wrath of yore!

The storm has burst! and while we speak, more furious, wilder, higher,
Dart from the circling batteries a hundred tongues of fire;
The waves gleam red, the lurid vault of heaven seems rent above—
Fight on, oh, knightly gentlemen! for faith, and home, and love!

There's not, in all that line of flame, one soul that would not rise,
To seize the victor's wreath of blood, though death must give the prize;
There's not, in all this anxious crowd that throngs the ancient town,
A maid who does not yearn for power to strike one foeman down!

The conflict deepens! ship by ship the proud Armada sweeps,
Where fierce from Sumter's raging breast the volleyed lightning leaps,
And ship by ship, raked, overborne, 'ere burned the sunset light,
Crawls in the gloom of baffled hate beyond the field of fight!

Fort Moultrie.

CHARLESTON AT THE CLOSE OF 1863.

What! still does the mother of treason uprear
Her crest 'gainst the furies that darken her sea,
Unquelled by mistrust, and unblanched by a fear,
Unbowed her proud head, and unbending her knee,
Calm, steadfast and free!

Ay! launch your red lightnings! blaspheme in your wrath!
Shock earth, wave, and heaven with the blasts of your ire;
But she seizes your death-bolts yet hot from their path,
And hurls back your lightnings and mocks at the fire
Of your fruitless desire!

Ringed round by her brave, a fierce circlet of flame
Flashes up from the sword-points that cover her breast;
She is guarded by love, and enhaloed by fame,

And never, we swear, shall your footsteps be pressed,
Where her dead heroes rest.

Her voice shook the tyrant, sublime from her tongue
Fell the accents of warning! a prophetess grand—
On her soil the first life notes of liberty rung,
And the first stalwart blow of her gauntleted hand
Broke the sleep of her land.

What more? she hath grasped in her iron-bound will
The fate that would trample her honors to earth;
The light in those deep eyes is luminous still
With the warmth of her valor, the glow of her worth,
Which illumine the earth.

And beside her a knight the great Bayard had loved,
“Without fear or reproach,” lifts her banner on high;
He stands in the vanguard majestic, unmoved,
And a thousand firm souls when that chieftain is nigh,
Vow “'tis easy to die!”

Their words have gone forth on the fetterless air,
The world's breath is hushed at the conflict! Before
Gleams the bright form of Freedom, with wreaths in her hair—
And what though the chaplet be crimsoned with gore—
We shall prize her the more!

And while Freedom lures on with her passionate eyes
To the height of her promise, the voices of vore
From the storied profound of past ages arise,
And the pomps of their magical music outpour
O'er the war-beaten shore!

Then gird your brave empress, O heroes! with flame
Flashed up from the sword-points that cover her breast!
She is guarded by Love and enhaloed by Fame,
And never, stern foe! shall your footsteps be pressed
Where her dead martyrs rest!

SCENE IN A COUNTRY HOSPITAL.

Here, lonely, wounded and apart,
From out my casement's glimmering round,
I watch the wayward bluebirds dart
Across yon flowery ground;
How sweet the prospect! and how fair
The balmy peace of earth and air.

But, lowering over fields afar,
A red cloud breaks with sulphurous breath,
And well I know what gory star,
Is regnant in his house of death;
Yet faint the conflict's gathering roll,
To the fierce tempest in my soul.

I, who the foremost ranks had led,
To strike for cherished home and land,
Groan idly on this torturing bed,
With broken frame and palsied hand,
So nerveless, 'tis a task to scare,
The insects fluttering round my hair.

O God! for one brief hour again,
Of that grim joy my spirit knew,
When foemen's life-blood poured like rain,
And sabres flashed and trumpets blew!
One hour to smite, or smitten die
On the wild breast of victory!

It may not be; my pulses beat
Too feebly, and my heart is chill.
Death, like a thief with stealthy feet
Draws nigh to work his ruthless will;
Hope, Honor, Glory, pass me by,
But he stands near with mocking eye!

Ay, smooth the couch!—pour out the draught,
That, haply, for a season's space,
Hath power to charm his fatal shaft,
And warn the death-damps off my face,
A blest reprieve!—a wondrous boon,
Thank Heaven! this—all—ends with me soon.

VICKSBURG.—A BALLAD.

For sixty days and upwards,
A storm of shell and shot
Rained round us in a flaming shower,
But still we faltered not.
“If the noble city perish.”
Our grand young leader said,
“Let the only walls the foe shall scale
“Be ramparts of the dead!”

For sixty days and upwards,
The eye of heaven waxed dim;
And e'en throughout God's holy morn,
O'er Christian prayer and hymn,
Arose a hissing tumult,
As if fiends in air
Strove to engulf the voice of faith
In the shrieks of their despair.

There was wailing in the houses,
There was trembling on the marts,
While the tempest raged and thundered,
'Mid the silent thrill of hearts;
But the Lord, our shield, was with us,
And ere a month had sped,
Our very women walked the streets
With scarce one throb of dread.

And the little children gambolled,
Their faces purely raised,
Just for a wondering moment,
As the huge bombs whirled and blazed,
Then turned with silvery laughter
To the sports which children love,
Thrice-mailed in the sweet, instinctive thought
That the good God watched above.

Yet the hailing bolts fell faster,
From scores of flame-clad ships,
And about us, denser, darker,
Grew the conflict's wild eclipse,
Till a solid cloud closed o'er us,
Like a type of doom and ire,
Whence shot a thousand quivering tongues
Of forked and vengeful fire.

But the unseen hands of angels
Those death-shafts warned aside,
And the dove of heavenly mercy
Ruled o'er the battle tide;
In the houses ceased the wailing.
And through the war-scarred marts
The people strode, with step of hope,
To the music in their hearts.

THE LITTLE WHITE GLOVE.

The early springtime faintly flushed the earth,
And in the woods, and by their favorite stream
The fair, wild roses blossomed modestly,
Above the wave that wooed them: there at eve,
Philip had brought the woman that he loved,
And told his love, and bared his burning heart.
She, Constance,—the shy sunbeams trembling oft,
Through dewy leaves upon her golden hair,—
Made him no answer, tapped her pretty foot,
And seemed to muse: “To-morrow I depart,”
Said Philip, sadly, “for wild fields of war;

Shall I go girt with love's invisible mail,
Stronger than mortal armor, or, all stripped
Of love and hope, march reckless unto death?”
A soft mist filled her eyes, and overflowed
In sudden rain of passion, as she stretched
Her delicate hand to his, and plighted troth,
With lips more rosy than the sun-bathed flowers;
And Philip pressed the dear hand fervently,
Wherefrom in happy mood, he gently drew
A small white glove, and ere she guessed his will,
Clipped lightly from her head one golden curl,
And bound the glove, and placed it next his heart.

“Now I am safe,” cried Philip; “this pure charm
Is proof against all hazard or mischance.
Here, yea, unto this self-same spot I vow
To bring it stainless back; and you shall wear
This little glove upon our marriage eve.”
And Constance heard him, smiling through her tears.
Another springtime faintly flushed the earth,
And in the woods, and by their favorite stream,
The fair, wild roses blossomed modestly
Above the wave that wooed them: there at eve
Came a pale woman with wild, wandering eyes,
And tangled, golden ringlets, and weak steps
Tottering towards the streamlet's rippling marge,
She seemed phantasmal, shadowy, like the forms

By moonlight conjured up from a place of graves;
There, crouching o'er the stream, she laved and laved
Some object in it, with a strained regard.
And muttered fragments of distempered words,
Whereof were these: “He vowed to bring it back,
The love-charm that I gave him—my white glove—
Stainless and whole. He has not kept his oath!
Oh, Philip, Philip! have you cast me off,
Off, like this worthless thing you send me home,
Tattered and mildewed? Look you! what a rent,
Right through the palm! It cannot be my glove;
And look again; what horrid stain is here?
My glove; you placed it next your heart, and swore
To keep it safe, and on this self-same spot,
Return it to me on our marriage eve;
And now—and now—I know 'tis not my glove,—
Yet Philip, sweet! it was a cruel jest,
You surely did not mean to fright me thus?
For hark you! as I laved the loathsome thing,
To see what stain defiled it—(do not smile,
I feel that I am foolish, foolish, Philip)—
But, God of Heaven! I dreamed that stain was blood!”

STONEWALL JACKSON.

The fashions and the forms of men decay,
The seasons perish, the calm sunsets die,
Ne'er with the same bright pomp of cloud or ray
To flush the golden pathways of the sky;
All things are lost in dread eternity,—
States, empires, creeds, the lay
Of master poets, even the shapes of love,
Bear ever with them an invisible shade,
Whose name is Death; we cannot breathe nor move,
But that we touch the darkness, till dismayed,
We feel the imperious shadow freeze our hearts,
And mortal hope grows pale and fluttering life departs.
All things are lost in dread eternity,
Save that majestic virtue which is given
Once, twice, perchance beneath our earthly heaven,
To some great soul in ages: O! the lie,
The base, incarnate lie we call the world,
Shakes at his coming, as the forest shakes,
When mountain storms, with bannered clouds unfurled,
Rush down and rend it; sleek convention drops
Its glittering mass, and hoary, cobwebbed rules
Of petty charlatans or insolent fools
Shrink to annihilation,—Truth awakes,
A morning splendor in her fearless eyes,
Touching the delicate stops
Of some rare lute which breathes of promise fair,
Or pouring on the covenanted air
A trumpet blast which startles, but makes strong,
While ancient Wrong,
Driven like a beast from his deep-caverned lair,
Grows gaunt, and inly quakes,
Knowing that retribution draws so near!

Whether with blade or pen
Toil these immortal men,
Theirs is the light supreme, which genius wed
To a clear spiritual dower

Hath ever o'er the arousèd nations shed Joy, faith, and power;
Whether from wrestling with the god-like thought,
They launch a noiseless blessing on mankind,
Or through wild streams of terrible carnage brought,
No longer crushed and blind,
Trampled, dishevelled, gored,
They proudly lift, where kindling soul and eye
May feast upon her beauty as she stands
(Girt by the strength of her invincible bands),
And freed through keen redemption of the sword,
Thy worn, but radiant form, victorious Liberty!

We bow before this grandeur of the spirit;
We worship, and adore
God's image burning through it evermore;
And thus, in awed humility to-night,
As those who at some vast cathedral door
Pause with hushed faces, purified desires,
We contemplate his merit,
Who lifted failure to the heights of fame,
And by the side of fainting, dying right,
Stood, as Sir Galahad pure, Sir Lancelot brave,
The quick, indignant fires
Flushing his pale brow from the passionate mind
No strength could quell, no sophistry could bind,
Until that moment, big with mystic doom
(Whose issue sent
O'er the long wastes of half a continent
Electric shudders through the deepening gloom),
When in his knightly glory “Stonewall” fell,
And all our hearts sank with him; for we knew
Our staff, our bulwark broken, the fine clew
To freedom snapped, his hands had held alone,
Through all the storms of battle overblown,—
Lost, buried, mouldering in our hero's grave.

O soul! so simple, yet sublime!
With faith as large, and mild
As that of some benignant, trustful child,
Who mounts to heaven on bright, ethereal stairs
Of tender-worded prayers,—
Yet strong as if a Titan's force were there
To rise, to act, to suffer, and to dare,—
O soul! that on our time
Wrought, in the calm magnificence of power
To ends so noble, that an antique light
Of grace and virtue streamed along thy way,
Until the direst hour
Of carnage caught from that immaculate ray
A consecration, and a sanctity!
Thou art not dead, thou nevermore canst die,
But wide and far,
Where'er on Christian realms the morning star
Flames round the spires that tower towards the sky,—
Thy name, a household word,
In cottage homes, by palace walls, is heard,
Breathed with low murmurs, reverentially!

Even as I raise this faltering song to one,
Who now beyond the empires of the sun,

Looks down perchance upon our mournful sphere,
With the deep pity of seraphic eyes,
Fancy unveils the future, and I see
Millions on millions, as year follows year,
Gather around our warrior's place of rest
In the green shadows of Virginian hills;
Not with the glow of martial blazonry,
With trump and muffled drum,
Those pilgrim millions come,
But with bowed heads, and measured footsteps slow,
As those who near the presence of a shrine,
And feel an air divine,
All round about them blandly, sweetly blow,
While like dream-music the faint fall of rills.
Lapsing from steep to steep,
The wood-dove 'plaining in her covert deep,
And the long whisperings of the ghostly pine
(Like ocean-breathings borne from tides of sleep),
With every varied melody expressed
In Nature's score of solemn harmonies,
Blends with a feeling in the reverent breast
Which cannot find a voice in mortal speech,
So deep, so deep it lies beyond the reach
Of stammering words,—the pilgrims only know
That slumbering, O! so calmly there, below
The dewy grass, the melancholy trees,
Moulders the dust of him,
By whose crystalline fame, earth's scarlet pomps grow dim,
The crownèd heir
Of two majestic immortalities,
That which is earthly, and yet scarce of earth,
Whose fruitful seeds
Were his own grand, self-sacrificing deeds,
And that whose awful birth
Flowered into instant perfectness sublime,
When done with toil and time,
He shook from off the raiments of his soul,
The weary conflict's desecrating dust,
For stern reveillés, heard the angels sing,
For battle turmoils found eternal calm,
Laid down his sinless sword to clasp the palm,
And where vast heavenly organ-notes outroll
Melodious thunders, 'mid the rush of wing,
And flash of plume celestial, paused in peace,
A rapture of ineffable release
To know the long fruition of the just!

This Ode was originally written to be delivered before a Southern patriotic association.

SONNETS.

I.
ON THE CHIVALRY OF THE PRESENT TIME.

Ah! foolish souls and false! who loudly cried
“True chivalry no longer breathes in time.”
Look round us now; how wondrous, how sublime
The heroic lives we witness; far and wide,
Stern vows by sterner deeds are justified;
Self abnegation, calmness, courage, power,
Sway with a rule august, our stormy hour,
Wherein the loftiest hearts have wrought and died—
Wrought grandly, and died smiling. Thus, oh God,
From tears, and blood, and anguish, thou hast brought
The ennobling act, the faith-sustaining thought—
'Till in the marvelous present, one may see

A mighty stage, by knight and patriots trod,
Who had not shunned earth's haughtiest chivalry.

II.
ELLIOTT IN FORT SUMTER.

And high amongst these chiefs of iron grain,
Large-statured natures, souls of Spartan mien,
Superbly brave, inflexibly serene,
Man of the stalwart hope, the sleepless brain,
Well dost thou guard our fortress by the main!
And what, though inch by inch old Sumter falls,
There's not a stone that forms those sacred walls,
But holds a tongue, which shall not speak in vain!
A tongue that tells of such heroic mood,
Such nerved endurance, such immaculate will,
That after times shall hearken and grow still,
With breathless admiration, and on thee
(Whose stern resolve our glorious cause made good).
Confer an antique immortality!

OUR MARTYRS.

I am sitting alone and weary,
By the hearth of my darkened room,
And the low wind's miserere,
Makes sadder the midnight gloom.
“There's a nameless terror nigh me—
There's a phantom spell on the air,
And methinks, that the dead glide by me,
And the breath of the grave's in my hair!”

'Tis a vision of ghastly faces,
All pallid and worn with pain,
Where the splendor of manful graces
Shines dim thro' a scarlet rain:—
In a wild and weird procession
They sweep by my startled eyes,
And stern with their Fate's fruition,
Seem melting in blood-red skies.

Have they come from the shores supernal;
Have they passed from the spirit's goal,
'Neath the veil of the life eternal
To dawn on my shrinking soul?
Have they turned from the choiring angels,
Aghast at the woe and dearth,
That war with his dark evangels
Hath wrought in the loved of earth?

Vain dream! amid far-off mountains
They lie where the dew mists weep,
And the murmur of mournful fountains
Breathes over their painless sleep;
On the breast of the lonely meadows
Safe, safe, from the despot's will,
They rest in the starlit shadows,
And their brows are white and still,

Alas! for our heroes perished!
Cut down at their golden prime,
With the luminous hopes they cherished,
On the height of their faith sublime!
For them is the voice of wailing
And the sweet blush-rose departs.
From the cheeks of the maidens paling
O'er the wreck of their broken hearts.

And alas! for the vanished glory
Of a thousand household spells!
And alas! for the tearful story
Of the spirit's fond farewells!
By the flood, on the field, in the forest,
Our bravest have yielded breath,
Yet the shafts that have smitten the sorest,
Were launched by a viewless death.

Oh, Thou! that hast charms of healing,
Descend on a widowed land,
And bind o'er the wounds of feeling,
The balms of thy mystic hand;

Till the lives that lament and languish,
Renewed by a touch divine,
From the depths of their mortal anguish,
May rise to the calm of Thine.

FORGOTTEN.

Forgotten! Can it be a few swift rounds
Of Time's great chariot wheels have crushed to naught
The memory of those fearful sights and sounds,
With speechless misery fraught—
Wherethro' we hope to gain the Hesperian height,
Where Freedom smiles in light?

Forgotten! scarce have two dim autumns veiled
With merciful mist those dreary burial sods,
Whose coldness (when the high-strung pulses failed,
Of men who strove like gods)
Wrapped in a sanguine fold of senseless dust
Dead hearts and perished trust!

Forgotten! While in far-off woodland dell,
By lonely mountain tarn and murmuring stream,
Bereavèd hearts with sorrowful passion swell—
Their lives one ghastly dream
Of hope outwearied and betrayed desire,
And anguish crowned with fire!

Forgotten! while our manhood cursed with chains,
And pilloried high for all the world to view,
Writhes in its fierce, intolerable pains,
Decked with dull wreaths of rue,
And shedding blood for tears, hands waled with scars,
Lifts to the dumb, cold stars!

Forgotten! Can the dancer's jocund feet
Flash o'er a charnel-vault, and maidens fair
Bend the white lustre of their eyelids sweet,
Love-weighed, so nigh despair,
Its ice-cold breath must freeze their blushing brows,
And hush love's tremulous vows?

Forgotten! Nay: but all the songs we sing
Hold under-burdens, wailing chords of woe;
Our lightest laughters sound with hollow ring,
Our bright wit's freest flow,
Quavers to sudden silence of affright,
Touched by an untold blight!

Forgotten! No! we cannot all forget,
Or, when we do, farewell to Honor's face,
To Hope's sweet tendance, Valor's unpaid debt,
And every noblest Grace,
Which, nursed in Love, might still benignly bloom
Above a nation's tomb!

Forgotten! Tho' a thousand years should pass,
Methinks our air will throb with memory's thrills,
A conscious grief weigh down the faltering grass,
A pathos shroud the hills,
Waves roll lamenting, autumn sunsets yearn
For the old time's return!

University of Virginia Library

POEMS OF THE WAR. 1861–1865.

MY MOTHER-LAND.