A WAR STUDY. "Sun and rain regardless falling On the just and the unjust." Methinks, all idly and too well We love this Nature-little care (Whate'er her children brave and bear) Were hers, though any grief befell. With gayer sunshine still she seeks To gild our trouble, so 'twould seem; Through all this long, tremendous dream, A tear hath never wet her cheeks. And such a scene I call to mind: The third day's thunder (fort and fleet, And the great guns beneath our feet) Was dying, and a warm Gulf wind Made monotone 'mid stays and shrouds; For still, from mortar and from gun, And I their beauty praised: but he, No despot ever saw such forces, Enough to strike the Old World dumb! Their gathering cry a thunder hum. To foreign tyrants fearful warning, This strife 'twixt Freedom's children stands, Once more united, meet we'd scorning The leagued wrath of king-ruled lands; With Freedom's flag our hosts adorning, Upheld and fenced by Freemen's hands. Urge on the fight! True to ourselves, a brighter morning, Without a cloud, is swiftly dawning Upon our night. Then, brothers, fearful though the toil be, Strain every nerve to bear the weight; Think what reward will a free soil be, Beyond the battle's lurid strait; Though unexampled, long, the moil be, Joys just as vast your labors wait: To arms and fight! They despise our Republic, John Bull, Don't meddle with the Yankees, I pray; THE VIRGINIA MOTHER. BY EDNA DEAN PROCTOR. My home is drear and still to-night, But my fire burns dim, while athwart the wall Is the sleeping hound on the moonlit floor. Roll back, O weary years! and bring Though fierce and strong the war-whirl's boil be, When every bird was on the wing, True to the end there can ao foil be: We war for right. DON'T MEDDLE WITH THE YANKEES, JOHN BULL. BY JAMES S. WATKINS. Written while the fever ran high on recognition by England and France, during the first year of the unnatural war, and inscribed to the English secessionists of to-day. Don't meddle with the Yankees, John Bull, As you treated the captured Sepoy. The Yankees don't boast, Johnny Bull, For "the Yankees are awful when riz!" We've "a 'ost hov your 'eroes," John Bull, When, in fact, they're a treacherous band: And my blithe summer boys were born! With his laughing eyes and his locks of gold! Our laurels blush when May winds call, Our pines shoot high through mellow showers; So rosy flushed, so slender tall, My boys grew up from childhood's hours. They climbed the heights or they roamed the plain; O Storm! look up; you ne'er may hear, Their whistle stealing o'er the hill; What drew our hunters from the hills? When Shenandoah roars below. My tears their fond arms round me thrown- But oh! to feel my boys were foes Was more than loss or battle's steel! In every shifting cloud that rose I saw their hostile squadrons wheel; And heard in the waves as they hurried by, So time went on. The skies were blue; Our wheat-fields yellow in the sun; When down the vale a rider flew : "Ho! neighbors, Gettysburgh is won! Horse and foot, at the cannon's mouth We hurled them back to the hungry South; The North is safe, and the vile marauder Curses the hour he crossed the border." My boys were there! I nearer pressed"And Philip, Courtney, what of them?" His voice dropped low: "O madam! rest Falls sweet when battle's tide we stem : Your Philip was first of the brave that day With his colors grasped as in death he lay: And Courtney-well, I only knew Not a man was left of his rebel crew!" My home is drear and still to-night, Where Shenandoah murmuring flows; But my fire burns dim, while athwart the wall Yet still in dreams my boys I own: They chase the deer o'er dewy hills, Their hair by mountain winds is blown, Their shout the echoing valley fills, Wafts from the woodland spring sunshine Comes as they open this door of mine; And I hear them sing by the evening blaze The songs they sang in the vanished days. I cannot part their lives and say, "This was the traitor, this the true;" God only knows why one should stray, And one go pure death's portals through. They have passed from their mother's clasp and care; LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. BY ALFRED B. STREET. For months that followed the triumph the rebels had boasted they wrought, But which lost to them Chattanooga, thus bringing their triumph to naught; The mountain-walled citadel city, with its outposts in billowy crowds, Grand soarers among the lightnings, stern conquerors of the clouds! For months, I say, had the rebels, with the eyes of their cannon, looked down From the high-crested forenead of Lookout, the Mission's long sinuous crown; Till Grant, our invincible hero, the winner of every fight! Who joys in the strife, like the eagle that drinks from the storm delight! Marshalled his war-worn legions, and, pointing to them the foe, Kindled their hearts with the tidings that now should be stricken the blow, The rebel to sweep from old Lookout, that cloud-post dizzily high, Whence the taunt of his cannon and banner had affronted so long the sky. Brave Thomas the foeman had brushed from his summit the nearest, and now The balm of the midnight's quiet soothed Nature's agonized brow; A midnight of murkiest darkness, and Lookout's undefined mass Heaved grandly a frown on the welkin, a barricade nothing might pass. Its breast was sprinkled with sparkles, its crest was dotted with gold, Telling the camps of the rebels secure as they deemed in their hold. Where glimmered the creek of the Lookout, it seemed the black dome of the night Had dropped all its stars in the valley, it glittered so over with light: There were voices and clashings of weapons, and drum-beat and bugle and tramp, Quick flittings athwart the broad watchfires that painted red rings through the camp: There were figures dark edging the watchfires, and groups at the front of each tent, And a tone like the murmur of waters ail round from the valley upsent. "D'ye see, lad, that black-looking peak?" said a sergeant, scarred over and gray, To a boy, both in glow of a camp-fire, whence wavered their shadows away; "Strap tightly your drum, or you'll lose it when climbing yon hill; for the word Is to take that pricked ear of old Lookout, where Bragg's shots so often we've heard ; Our noble commander has said it, and we all should be minding our prayers, By dawn we must plant the old flag where the rebels now shame us with theirs ; Hurrah for bold General Hooker, the leader that Still the rock in the forehead of Lookout through the rents of the windy mist shows The horrible flag of the Cross-bar, the counterfeit rag of our foes: Portentous it looks through the vapor, then melts to the eye, but it tells That the rebels still cling to their stronghold, and hope for the moment dispels. But the roll of the thunder seems louder, flame angrier smites on the eye, The scene from the fog is laid open-a battle-field fought in the sky! Eye to eye, hand to hand, all are struggling-ha! traitors, ha! rebels, ye know Now the might in the arm of our heroes! dare ye bide their roused terrible blow? They drive them, our braves drive the rebels! they flee, and our heroes pursue! We scale rock and trunk-from their breastworks they run! oh! the joy of the view! Hurrah! how they drive them! hurrah! how they drive the fierce rebels along! One more cheer—still another! each lip seems as ready to burst into song. On, on, ye bold blue-coated heroes! thrust, strike, pour your shots in amain ! Banners fly, columns rush, seen and lost in the quick, fitful gauzes of rain. O boys! how your young blood is streaming! but falter not, drive them to rout! From barricade, breastwork, and rifle-pit, how the scourged rebels pour out! Dawn breaks, the sky clears-ha! the shape upon Lookout's tall crest that we see, Is the bright beaming flag of the White Star, the beautiful flag of the Free! How it waves its rich folds in the zenith, and looks in the dawn's open eye, With its starred breast of pearl and of crimson, as if with heaven's colors to vie! Hurrah! rolls from Moccasin Point, and Hurrah! from bold Cameron's Hill! Hurrah! peals from glad Chattanooga! bliss seems every bosom to fill ! Thanks, thanks, O ye heroes of Lookout! O brave Union boys! during time Shall stand this your column of glory, shall shine this your triumph sublime! To the deep mountain den of the panther the hunter climbed, drove him to bay, Then fought the fierce foe till he turned and fled, bleeding and gnashing away! Fled As he paced to and fro, for the hunter his wild craggy cavern to dare! away from the scene where so late broke his growls and he shot down his glare, Thanks, thanks, O ye heroes of Lookout! ye girded your souls to the fight, Drew the sword, dropped the scabbard, and went in the full conscious strength of your might! Now climbing o'er rock and o'er tree-mound, up, up, by the hemlock ye swung! plunging through thicket and swamp, on the edge of the hollow ye hung! Now But never the braves of the White Star have sullied Oh! long as the mountains shall rise o'er the waters of their fame in defeat, bright Tennessee, And they will not to-day see the triumph pass by them Shall be told the proud deeds of the White Star, the the foeman to greet! No, no, for the battle is ending; the ranks on the slope of the crest Are the true Union blue, and our banners alone catch the gleams of the west; Though the Cross-bar still flies from the summit, we roll out our cheering of pride! Not in vain, O ye heroes of Lookout! O brave Union boys! have ye died! One brief struggle more sees the banner, that blot on the sky, brushed away, When the broad moon now basking upon us shall yield her rich lustre to-day: cloup-treading host of the free! The camp-fire shall blaze to the chorus, the picket post peal it on high, How was fought the fierce battle of Lookout-how won THE GRAND FIGHT OF THE SKY! THE CHILDREN'S TABLE. M. J. M. SWEAT. While the wise men are all seeking How to save our native land; And the brave men are all fighting, Heart to heart and hand to hand: While the grown-up women labor Little hands we have, but willing; Who have fallen on the field We have toiled with busy fingers Many days, to gather here Since this big world was begun! Let the great and glorious impulse Won from heaven by children's prayers! Metropolitan Fair, New-York, April, 1864. "ONLY A PRIVATE KILLED." BY H. L. GORDON. "We've had a fight," a captain said, 'Much rebel blood we've spilled; We've put the saucy foe to flight, Our loss-but a private killed!" "Ah! yes," said a sergeant on the spot, Then bayoneted to death!" When again was hushed the martial din, For I could not think the rebel foe, Though under curse and ban, A Minie ball had broke his thigh, The last was through his pulseless breast, His hair was matted with his gore, His hands were clenched with might, He had grasped the foeman's bayonet, They raised the coat-cape from his face- Think what a shudder thrilled my heart! As we talked of days of yore. We all go home again." Ah! little he thought, that soldier brave, That God had sent a messenger To claim his Christian soul. But he fell like a hero, fighting, And honor is his, though our chief shall say: Only a private killed !" I knew him well, he was my friend; He loved our land and laws; And he fell a blessed martyr To our country's holy cause. And, soldiers, the time will come, perhaps, When our blood will thus be spilled, And then of us our chief will say: 66 Only a private killed!" But we fight our country's battles, To our children and their children! What care we if our chief shall say: "Only a private killed !" BATTLE-WORN BANNERS. BY PARK BENJAMIN. I saw the soldiers come to-day No conqueror rode before their way But captains, like themselves, on foot, All grandly eloquent though mute, Those banners soiled with dust and smoke, That through the serried phalanx broke, What tales of sudden pain and death When even the bravest held his breath By hands of steel those flags were waved Above the carnage dire, Almost destroyed yet always saved, Though down at times, still up they rose And here the true and loyal still |