Poetry, Lyrical, Narrative and Satirical, of the Civil War

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Richard Grant White
American News Company, 1866 - American poetry - 334 pages

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Page 173 - It shivered the window, pane and sash; It rent the banner with seam and gash. Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf; She leaned far out on the window-sill, And shook it forth with a royal will. "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country's flag,
Page 68 - He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat: He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.
Page 21 - WHEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.
Page 252 - mid a storm of huzzas, And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because The sight of the master compelled it to pause. With foam and with dust the black charger was gray; By the flash of his eye, and the red nostril's play, He seemed to the whole great army to say, "I have brought you Sheridan all the way From Winchester down to save the day!
Page 21 - Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side...
Page 172 - UP from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn, The clustered spires of Frederick stand Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. Round about them orchards sweep, Apple and peach tree fruited deep, Fair as a garden of the Lord To the eyes of the famished rebel horde...
Page 139 - The word of the Lord by night To the watching Pilgrims came, As they sat by the seaside, And filled their hearts with flame. God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ear the morning brings The outrage of the poor.
Page 270 - You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier! • You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, Broad for the self-complacent British sneer, His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face, His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair. His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, His lack of all we prize as debonair, Of power or will to shine, of art to please!
Page 322 - We see him now — the old slouched hat Cocked o'er his eye askew, The shrewd, dry smile, the speech so pat, So calm, so blunt, so true. The "Blue-Light Elder" knows 'em well; Says he, "That's Banks— he's fond of shell; Lord save his soul ! we'll give him " well, That's "Stonewall Jackson's way.
Page 22 - Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves, Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime ; — Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time ? Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth rock sublime ? They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, Unconvinced...

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