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СКАЧАТЬ the winter white and dead,

      And the terror dumb with stupor,

      And the sky a sheet of lead;

      And events that came resounding

      With the cry that All was lost,

      Like the thunder-cracks of massy ice

      In intensity of frost—

      Bursting one upon another

      Through the horror of the calm.

      The paralysis of arm

      In the anguish of the heart;

      And the hollowness and dearth.

      The appealings of the mother

      To brother and to brother

      Not in hatred so to part—

      And the fissure in the hearth

      Growing momently more wide.

      Then the glances 'tween the Fates,

      And the doubt on every side,

      And the patience under gloom

      In the stoniness that waits

      The finality of doom.

      II.

      So the winter died despairing,

      And the weary weeks of Lent;

      And the ice-bound rivers melted,

      And the tomb of Faith was rent.

      O, the rising of the People

      Came with springing of the grass,

      They rebounded from dejection

      And Easter came to pass.

      And the young were all elation

      Hearing Sumter's cannon roar,

      And they thought how tame the Nation

      In the age that went before.

      And Michael seemed gigantical,

      The Arch-fiend but a dwarf;

      And at the towers of Erebus

      Our striplings flung the scoff.

      But the elders with foreboding

      Mourned the days forever o'er,

      And re called the forest proverb,

      The Iroquois' old saw:

      Grief to every graybeard

      When young Indians lead the war.

The March into Virginia,

       Table of Contents

      Ending in the First Manassas.

      (July, 1861.)

      Did all the lets and bars appear

      To every just or larger end,

      Whence should come the trust and cheer?

      Youth must its ignorant impulse lend—

      Age finds place in the rear.

      All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys,

      The champions and enthusiasts of the state:

      Turbid ardors and vain joys

      Not barrenly abate—

      Stimulants to the power mature,

      Preparatives of fate.

      Who here forecasteth the event?

      What heart but spurns at precedent

      And warnings of the wise,

      Contemned foreclosures of surprise?

      The banners play, the bugles call,

      The air is blue and prodigal.

      No berrying party, pleasure-wooed,

      No picnic party in the May,

      Ever went less loth than they

      Into that leafy neighborhood.

      In Bacchic glee they file toward Fate,

      Moloch's uninitiate;

      Expectancy, and glad surmise

      Of battle's unknown mysteries.

      All they feel is this: 'tis glory,

      A rapture sharp, though transitory,

      Yet lasting in belaureled story.

      So they gayly go to fight,

      Chatting left and laughing right.

      But some who this blithe mood present,

      As on in lightsome files they fare,

      Shall die experienced ere three days are spent—

      Perish, enlightened by the vollied glare;

      Or shame survive, and, like to adamant,

      The throe of Second Manassas share.

Lyon.

       Table of Contents

      Battle of Springfield, Missouri.

      (August, 1861.)

      Some hearts there are of deeper sort,

      Prophetic, sad,

      Which yet for cause are trebly clad;

      Known СКАЧАТЬ