 | Later Lays and Lyrics |  |
ODE.
I.
Lo! stainless as the mountain sleet,A chaplet decks Columbia's brow;
No blot is on her banner-sheet,
No cloud on her escutcheon now:
A grander, more inspiring lay
Should thrill Earth's mighty heart to-day
Than stirred it when the Red sea coast
Was grim with corpses of a host.
II.
Oh! what a voice of jubilee,From liberated millions rose,
When Sherman, marching to the sea,
With mortal fear alarmed his foes;
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Are banished from our vast domain,
And freedmen cultivate the sod
Where the great captain's war-horse trod.
III.
Crows, northward winging overheadTheir way from fields of desperate fight,
Tales of the unreturning dead
Seem croaking in their heavy flight:—
Long absent they are flocking back
To olden haunts in funeral black,
And may their beaks in precious gore
Of brethren steeped be nevermore.
IV.
Peace to the fallen! hostile thought,And vengeful vow should be supprest
Since the great conflict has been fought,
And Union's cause with triumph blest.
Bones of our perished warriors lie,
Land of the South! beneath thy sky,
And dust of northern hearts must be,
“Till crack of doom,” a part of thee.
V.
And where war rolled his purple wavesThrough thy broad realm the generous West
Won partnership with thee in graves
Where martyrs of the struggle rest.
Friends now, but late thy foes, we feel
That thou wert worthy of our steel,
And that thy sons, in league with ours,
Could tame a bad world's banded powers.
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VI.
Victorious, we scorn to tearOne leaf, in view of Stonewall's tomb
From laurel thine the right to wear,
One feather from thy battle plume:
Ere slavery died unwept, unsung,
A plague-spot to thy beauty clung:
New-trimmed thine alter-flame to-day
Emits a purer, holier ray.
VII.
Between stern North and fiery South,Although a thousand hopes are wrecked,
Acquaintance at the cannon's mouth
Begot a mutual respect.
The brave resentment never know
When overthrown a gallant foe,
Baptised by fire and leaden rain,
Who measured strength with them in vain.
VIII.
No longer like red levin glowsBellona's torch from shore to shore;
With autumn leaves and wintry snows
Its embers have been covered o'er;
And richer for the bloody toil
Of foemen is the quickened soil,
And growing on heroic graves,
With ranker growth the harvest waves.
IX.
The fiery passions of the strifeThus in the hearts of men will die,
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Spring up where cold their ashes lie:—
Again the myrtle loves to twine
Its blossoms round the northern pine,
And healing winds are breathing balm
Upon the wounded southern palm.
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