From “Alice of Monmouth”
OUR good steeds snuff the evening air,
Our pulses with their purpose tingle;
The foeman’s fires are twinkling there;
He leaps to hear our sabres jingle!
HALT!
Each carbine send its whizzing ball:
Now, cling! clang! forward all,
Into the fight!
Dash on beneath the smoking dome:...
Our bugles sound gayly. To horse and away!
And over the mountains breaks the day;
Then ho! brothers, ho! for the ride or the fight,
There are deeds to be done ere we slumber to-night!
And whether we fight or whether we fall
By sabre-stroke or rifle-ball,
The hearts of the free will remember us yet,
And our country, our country...
SO 1 that soldierly legend is still on its journey,—
That story of Kearny who knew not to yield!
’T was the day when with Jameson, fierce Berry, and Birney,
Against twenty thousand he rallied the field.
Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest,
Where the dead lay in clumps through the dwarf oak and pine,
Where the aim...
The General dashed along the road
Amid the pelting rain;
How joyously his bold face glowed
To hear our cheers’ refrain!
His blue blouse flapped in wind and wet,
His boots were splashed with mire,
But round his lips a smile was set,
And in his eyes a fire.
A laughing word, a gesture kind,—
We did not ask for...
Close his 1 eyes; his work is done!
What to him is friend or foeman,
Rise of moon or set of sun,
Hand of man or kiss of woman?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know;
Lay him low!
As man may, he fought his fight,
Proved his truth by his endeavor;...
[December 15, 1862]
’T WAS the last fight at Fredericksburg,—
Perhaps the day you reck,
Our boys, the Twenty-Second Maine,
Kept Early’s men in check.
Just where Wade Hampton boomed away
The fight went neck and neck.
All day the weaker wing we held,
And held it with a will.
Five several stubborn times we charged...
STEADY, boys, steady!
Keep your arms ready,
God only knows whom we may meet here.
Don’t let me be taken;
I ’d rather awaken,
To-morrow, in—no matter where,
Than lie in that foul prison-hole—over there.
Step slowly!
Speak lowly!
These rocks...
Into a ward of the whitewashed halls
Where the dead and the dying lay,
Wounded by bayonets, shells, and balls,
Somebody’s darling was borne one day—
Somebody’s darling, so young and brave;
Wearing yet on his sweet pale face—
Soon to be hid in the dust of the grave—
The lingering light of his boyhood’s grace.
Matted and...
In the prison cell I sit,
Thinking, mother dear, of you,
And our bright and happy home so far away,
And the tears they fill my eyes,
Spite of all that I can do,
Tho’ I try to cheer my comrades and be gay.
Trump, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,
Oh, cheer up, comrades, they will come,
And beneath the starry flag we...
Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms,
To deck our girls for gay delights!
The crimson flower of battle blooms,
And solemn marches fill the night.
Weave but the flag whose bars to-day
Drooped heavy o’er our early dead,
And homely garments, coarse and gray,
For orphans that must earn their bread!
Keep back your tunes, ye...
