THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE 127

THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE.*

WE are coming, Father Abra'am, three hundred thousand

more,

From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore;

We leave our ploughs and workshops, our wives and children dear,

With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear;
We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before :
We are coming, Father Abra'am, three hundred thousand

more.

If you look across the hill-tops that meet the northern sky, Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry; And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside, And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride; And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour:

We are coming, Father Abra'am, three hundred thousand

If

you

more.

look all up our valleys, where the growing harvests shine,

You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into line; And children from their mothers' knees are pulling at the

weeds,

And learning how to reap and sow against their country's

needs;

And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage

door:

We are coming, Father Abra'am, three hundred thousand

more.

* President Lincoln issued a proclamation, July, 1862, calling for three hundred thousand more volunteers.

You have called us, and we 're coming, by Richmond's bloody tide

To lay us down, for Freedom's sake, our brothers' bones

beside;

Or from foul treason's savage grasp to wrench the murderous blade,

And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade.
Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone

before:

We are coming, Father Abra'am, three hundred thousand

more.

Evening Post.

THE DAY OF GOD.

BY GEORGE S. BURLEIGH.

ALL blessings walk with onward feet;
No day dawns twice, no night comes back;
The car of doom, or slow or fleet,

Rolls down an unreturned track.

What we have been, we cannot be;
Forward, inexorable Fate
Points mutely to her own decree,
Beyond her hour is all too late.

God reaps his judgment field to-day,
And sifts the darnel from the wheat;
A whirlwind sweeps the chaff away,
And fire the refuge of deceit.

Once in a century only blooms

The flower of fortune so sublime
As now hangs budded o'er the tombs
Of the great fathers of old time.

THE DAY OF GOD.

Eternal Justice sits on high

And gathers in her awful scales Our shame and glory - Slavery's lie And Freedom's starry countervails.

When falls her sword, as fall it must
In red Bellona's fiery van,

Let the old anarch bite the dust,
And rise the rescued rights of Man.

In vain a nation's bloody sweat,

The sob of myriad hearts in vain, If the scotched snake may live to set Its venom in our flesh again.

Priests of an altar fired once more
For Freedom in His awful name,
Who trod the wine-press, dripping gore,
And gave the Law in lurid flame,

Oh, not in human wrath, that wreaks
Revenge for wrong, and blood for blood
Not in the fiery will that seeks

Brute power in battle's stormy flood,

Go forth, redeemers of a land,

Sad, stern, and fearless for the Lord, Solemn and calm, with firm right hand Laid to the sacrificial sword.

The lords of treason and the whip
Have called you to the dread appeal,
From the loud cannon's fevered lip,
And the wide flash of bristling steel.

If now the echo of that voice

Shake down their prison-house of wrong,

129

They have their own perfidious choice;
For God is good, and Truth is strong.

Their steel draws lightning, and the bolt
But fires their own volcanic mine;
God in their vineyard of Revolt
Treads out his sacramental wine!

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

THE flags of war like storm-birds fly,
The charging trumpets blow;
Yet rolls no thunder in the sky,
No earthquake strives below.

And calm and patient nature keeps

Her ancient promise well,

Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps

The battle's breath of hell.

And still she walks in golden hours

Through harvest-happy farms,

And still she wears her fruits and flowers
Like jewels on her arms.

What means the gladness of the plain,
This joy of eve and morn,

The mirth that shakes the beard of grain,
And yellow locks of corn?

THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862.

Ah! eyes may well be full of tears,

And hearts with hate are hot;
But even paced come round the years,
And Nature changes not.

She meets with smiles our bitter grief,
With songs our groans of pain ;
She mocks with tint of flower and leaf
The war-field's crimson stain.

Still in the cannon's pause we hear
Her sweet thanksgiving psalm;
Too near to God for doubt or fear,
She shares the eternal calm.

She knows the seed lies safe below
The fires that blast and burn;
For all the tears of blood we sow,
She waits the rich return.

She sees, with clearer eye than ours,
The good of suffering born, —

The hearts that blossom like her flowers,
And ripen like her corn.

Oh! give to us, in times like these,

The vision of her eyes;

And make her eyes and fruited trees

Our golden prophecies!

Oh! give to us her finer ear!

Above this stormy din;

We too would hear the bells of cheer

Ring peace and freedom in.

131

Atlantic Monthly.