The churchyard where his children rest,
The quiet spot that suits him best :
There shall his grave be made,
And there his bones be laid!
And there his countrymen shall come,
With memory proud, with pity dumb,
And strangers far and near,
For many and many a year!
For many a year, and many an age,
While history on her ample page
The virtues shall enroll
Of that paternal soul !
SOUTH CAROLINA. - 1865.
BEHOLD her now, with restless, flashing eyes,
Crouching, a thing forlorn, beside the way!
Behold her ruined altars heaped to-day
With ashes of her costly sacrifice!
How changed the once proud State that led the strife, And flung the war-cry first throughout the land ! See helpless now the parricidal hand
Which aimed the first blow at the nation's life!
The grass is growing in the city's street,
Where stand the shattered spires, the broken walls;
And through the solemn noonday silence falls
The sentry's footstep as he treads his beat.
Behold once more the old flag proudly wave
Above the ruined fortress by the sea!
No longer shall that glorious banner be
The ensign of a land where dwells the slave.
Hark! on the air what swelling anthems rise:
A ransomed people, by the sword set free,
Are chanting now a song of liberty;
Hear how their voices echo to the skies!
Oh righteous retribution, great and just!
Behold the palm-tree fallen to the earth,
Where Freedom, rising from a second birth,
No more shall trail her garments in the dust!
Harpers' Weekly.
BY LIEUTENANT RICHARD REALF.
NOT ever, in all human time,
Did any man or nation
Plant foot upon the peaks sublime
Of Mount Transfiguration,
But first in long preceding hours
Of dread and solemn being,
Clashed battle 'gainst Satanic powers,
Alone with the All-seeing.
God's glory lights no mortal brows
Which sorrow hath not wasted;
No wine hath He for lips of those
His lees who never tasted.
Nor ever, till in bloodiest stress
The heart is well approved,
Does the All-brooding Tenderness
Cry, “This is my beloved!"
O land, through years of shrouded nights
In triple blackness groping,
Toward the far prophetic lights
That beacon the world's hoping, —
Behold! no tittle shalt thou miss
Of that transforming given
To all who, dragged through hell's abyss,
Hold fast their grip on heaven.
The Lord God's purpose throbs along
Our stormy turbulences;
He keeps the sap of nations strong
By hidden recompenses.
The Lord God sows his righteous grain
In battle-blasted furrows,
And draws from present days of pain
Large peace for calm to-morrows.
From strokes of unseen cimitars
A million hearts are bleeding;
A cry runs tingling to the stars
Of babes' and widows' pleading:
While at hell's altars sacrificed,
God's martyred son forever,
Lies the clear life that crystallized
Our kingliest endeavor.
And yet beneath our brimming tears
Lies nobler cause for singing
Than ever in the shining years,
When all our vales were ringing
With happy sounds of mellow peace;
And all our cities thundered
With lusty echoes, and our seas
By freighted keels were sundered.
For lo! the branding flails that drave
Our husks of foul self from us
Show all the watching heavens we have
Immortal grain of promise.
And lo! the dreadful blasts that blew
In gusts of fire amid us
Have scorched and winnowed from the true
The falseness which undid us.
No floundering more, for mind or heart,
Among the lower levels;
No welcome more for moods that sort
With satyrs and with devils;
But over all our fruitful slopes,
On all our plains of beauty,
Fair temples for fair human hopes,
And altar-thrones for duty.
Wherefore, O ransomed people, shout!
O banners, wave in glory!
O bugles, blow the triumph out!
O drums, strike up the story!
Clang, broken fetters, idle swords!
Clap hands, O States, together!
And let all praises be the Lord's,
Our Saviour and our Father.
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