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Southern Poems.
Selected, Arranged and Edited with Biographical Notes:
Electronic Edition.

ed. by Kent, Charles William, 1860-1917

Text scanned (OCR) by Don Sechler
Text encoded by Jordan Davis and Natalia Smith
First edition, 1997.
ca. 400K
Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1997.

No Copyright in US


Call number PS551 .K4 (Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

        The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-CH database "Documenting the American South."

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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998

SOUTHERN POEMS

SELECTED, ARRANGED AND EDITED
WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

BY

CHARLES W. KENT
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge



COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Page iii


PREFACE

        THESE poems are selected from the wide range of Southern poetry, that the South's contribution to our national literature may be in part apprehended. For a long time the productions of Southern writers were so inaccessible that authors of text-books on American Literature were disposed to neglect them altogether; and even later the admission of any Southern author, save one or two of international fame, was somewhat grudging and apologetic. In recent years, especially since the publication of the Library of Southern Literature, by which a new perspective for American literature was afforded, fuller treatment has been accorded these Southern authors; but very few students 1 of American literature have yet comprehended clearly and fully that, for some periods of our literary history and in some significant; and far-reaching movements, literature in the South has been the dominant and controlling factor.

        These selections, however, have not been made to establish any cause or exemplify any theory, but partly to illustrate chronological development, and mainly to portray Southern life and sentiment in poems of individual literary merit. In giving preference to such poems as reveal characteristics of Southern climate, conditions, and life, the danger has not been escaped of presenting an occasional sentiment heated by the


1. A notable exception is Dr. C. Alphonso Smith, in his Amerikanische Literatur, published by Weidmannische Buchhandlung, Berlin, Germany.
Page iv

passions of war or heightened by the presence of a dramatic crisis. It would be strange indeed if at that time no such sentiment were cherished or uttered: it would be even stranger to-day if we could not read these sentiments with the sympathy that belongs to their circumstances or the intellectual detachment that belongs to ours. As a nation we can recognize the literary merit of the Battle Hymn of the Republic and Maryland, My Maryland, even though as individuals we may not commend all the sentiments of either.

        In choosing these poems free use has been made of, first, the Library of Southern Literature, edited by Charles W. Kent and others, published by the Martin & Hoyt Company, Atlanta, Georgia; second, Three Centuries of Southern Poetry, edited by Carl Holliday, published by the Publishing House of the Methodist Church, South, Nashville, Tennessee; third, Songs of the South, edited by Jennie Thornley Clarke, published by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. Acknowledgments to holders of copyright are made at appropriate points throughout the following pages.


Page v


CONTENTS


Page 1

SOUTHERN POEMS


BACON'S EPITAPH

UNKNOWN

        In 1814 the Massachusetts Historical Society published the Burwell Papers, so called because of the family in whose possession these papers had long remained. At the close of Bacon's Proceedings in these papers stands the following remarkable poem, entitled Bacon's Epitaph, Made by his Man, and presumably written soon after Bacon's death in 1676.


                        DEATH, why so cruel? What! No other way
                        To manifest thy spleen, but thus to slay
                        Our hopes of safety, liberty, our all,
                        Which through thy tyranny with him 1 must fall
                        To its late chaos?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
                        . . . . . . . . . . . Now we must complain, 5
                        Since thou, in him, hast more than thousand slain,
                        Whose lives and safeties did so much depend
                        On him their life, with him their lives must end.
                        . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
                        Who now must heal those wounds, or stop that blood
                        The Heathen made and drew into a flood? 10
                        Who is 't must plead our cause? Nor trump nor drum


1. Nathaniel Bacon, born in Suffolk, England, in 1647; established a plantation on James River Virginia; without a commission marched against the Indians in 1676; declared a rebel; died on October 1,1676.
Page 2


                        Nor Deputations; these, alas! are dumb
                        And cannot speak. Our Arms (though ne'er so strong)
                        Will want the aid of his commanding tongue
                        Which conquer'd more than Cæsar. He o'erthrew 15
                        Only the outward frame; this could subdue
                        The rugged works of nature. Souls replete
                        With dull chill cold, he'd animate with heat
                        Drawn forth of reason's limbic. In a word,
                        Mars and Minerva both in him concurred 20
                        For art, for arms, whose pen and sword alike,
                        As Cato's did, may admiration strike
                        Into his foes; while they confess withal
                        It was their guilt styl'd him a criminal.
                        Only this difference does from truth proceed; 25
                        They in the guilt, he in the name must bleed.
                        While none shall dare his obsequies to sing
                        In deserv'd measures; until time shall bring
                        Truth crown'd with freedom, and from danger free
                        To sound his praises to posterity. 30


                        Here let him rest; while we this truth report
                        He 's gone from thence unto a higher Court
                        To plead his cause, where he by this doth know
                        Whether to Cæsar he was friend or foe.


RESIGNATION: OR, DAYS OF MY YOUTH

ST. GEORGE TUCKER


                        DAYS of my youth, ye have glided away;
                        Hairs of my youth, ye are frosted and gray;
                        Eyes of my youth, your keen sight is no more;
                        Cheeks of my youth, ye are furrowed all o'er;
                        Strength of my youth, all your vigor is gone; 5
                        Thoughts of my youth, your gay visions are flown.

Page 3


                        Days of my youth, I wish not your recall;
                        Hairs of my youth, I'm content ye shall fall;
                        Eyes of my youth, you much evil have seen;
                        Cheeks of my youth, bathed in tears have you been; 10
                        Thoughts of my youth, you have led me astray;
                        Strength of my youth, why lament your decay?


                        Days of my age, ye will shortly be past;
                        Pains of my age, yet a while ye can last;
                        Joys of my age, in true wisdom delight; 15
                        Eyes of my age, be religion your light;
                        Thoughts of my age, dread ye not the cold sod;
                        Hopes of my age, be ye fixed on your God.


THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY

        Written during the bombardment of Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, in 1814.


                        O! SAY, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
                        What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming -
                        Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the clouds of the fight,
                         O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
                         And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, 5
                        Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
                        O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
                        O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Page 4


                        On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
                        Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, 10
                        What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
                        As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
                        Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
                        In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;
                        'T is the star-spangled banner; O long may it wave 15
                        O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!


                        And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
                        That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
                        A home and a country should leave us no more?
                        Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's pollution. 20
                        No refuge could save the hireling and slave
                        From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave;
                        And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
                        O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.


                        O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 25
                        Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
                        Blessed with victory and peace, may the Heav'n- rescued land
                        Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
                        Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
                        And this be our motto-"In God is our trust!" 30
                        And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
                        O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Page 5


MY LIFE IS LIKE THE SUMMER ROSE

RICHARD HENRY WILDE

        Originally entitled Stanzas, and inscribed to Ellen Adair, daughter of General John Adair of Kentucky.


                        MY life is like the summer rose,
                        That opens to the morning sky,
                        But, ere the shades of evening close,
                        Is scattered on the ground - to die!
                        Yet on the rose's humble bed 5
                        The sweetest dews of night are shed,
                        As if she wept the waste to see -
                        But none shall weep a tear for me!


                        My life is like the autumn leaf
                        That trembles in the moon's pale ray: 10
                        Its hold is frail - its date is brief,
                        Restless - and soon to pass away!
                        Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade,
                        The parent tree will mourn its shade,
                        The winds bewail the leafless tree - 15
                        But none shall breathe a sigh for me!


                        My life is like the prints which feet
                        Have left on Tampa's desert strand;
                        Soon as the rising tide shall beat,
                        All trace will vanish from the sand; 20
                        Yet, as if grieving to efface
                        All vestige of the human race,
                        On that lone shore loud moans the sea -
                        But none, alas! shall mourn for me!

Page 6


I SIGH FOR THE LAND OF THE CYPRESS AND PINE

SAMUEL HENRY DICKSON


                        I SIGH for the land of the cypress and pine,
                        Where the jessamine blooms, and the gay woodbine;
                        Where the moss droops low from the green oak tree, -
                        Oh, that sun-bright land is the land for me!


                        The snowy flower of the orange there 5
                        Sheds its sweet fragrance through the air;
                        And the Indian rose delights to twine
                        Its branches with the laughing vine.


                        There the deer leaps light through the open glade,
                        Or hides him far in the forest shade, 10
                        When the woods resound in the dewy morn
                        With the clang of the merry hunter's horn.


                        There the hummingbird, of rainbow plume,
                        Hangs over the scarlet creeper's bloom;
                        While 'midst the leaves his varying dyes 15
                        Sparkle like half-seen fairy eyes.


                        There the echoes ring through the livelong day
                        With the mock-bird's changeful roundelay;
                        And at night, when the scene is calm and still,
                        With the moan of the plaintive whip-poor-will. 20

Page 7


                        Oh! I sigh for the land of the cypress and pine,
                        Of the laurel, the rose, and the gay woodbine,
                        Where the long, gray moss decks the rugged oak tree, -
                        That sun-bright land is the land for me.

A HEALTH 1

EDWARD COOTE PINKNEY


                        I FILL this cup to one made up of loveliness alone,
                        A woman of her gentle sex the seeming paragon;
                        To whom the better elements and kindly stars have given
                        A form so fair that, like the air, 't is less of earth than heaven.


                        Her every tone is music's own, like those of morning birds, 5
                        And something more than melody dwells ever in her words;
                        The coinage of her heart are they, and from her lips each flows
                        As one may see the burdened bee forth issue from the rose.


                        Affections are as thoughts to her, the measures of her hours;
                        Her feelings have the fragrancy, the freshness of young flowers; 10


1. According to Holliday (Three Centuries of Southern Poetry, Nashville, 1908), this poem was written in honor of Miss Rebecca Somerville, of Baltimore.
Page 8


                        And lovely passions, changing oft, so fill her she appears
                        The image of themselves by turns - the idol of past years!


                        Of her bright face one glance will trace a picture on the brain,
                        And of her voice in echoing hearts a sound must long remain;
                        But memory, such as mine of her, so very much endears, 15
                        When death is nigh my latest sigh will not be life's, but hers.


                        I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone,
                        A woman of her gentle sex the seeming paragon -
                        Her health! and would on earth there stood some more of such a frame, 19
                         That life might be all poetry, and weariness a name.

THE SWAMP FOX

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS


                        WE follow where the Swamp Fox 1 guides,
                        His friends and merry men are we;
                        And when the troop of Tarleton rides,
                        We burrow in the cypress tree.
                        The turfy hammock is our bed, 5
                        Our home is in the red deer's den,
                        Our roof, the tree-top overhead,
                        For we are wild and hunted men.


1. General Francis Marion of Revolutionary fame.
Page 9


                        We fly by day and shun its light,
                        But prompt to strike the sudden blow, 10
                        We mount and start with early night,
                        And through the forest track our foe,
                        And soon he hears our chargers leap,
                        The flashing saber blinds his eyes,
                        And ere he drives away his sleep, 15
                        And rushes from his camp, he dies.


                        Free bridle-bit, good gallant steed,
                        That will not ask a kind caress
                        To swim the Santee at our need,
                        When on his heels the foemen press - 20
                        The true heart and the ready hand,
                        The spirit stubborn to be free,
                        The twisted bore, the smiting brand -
                        And we are Marion's men, you see.


                        Now light the fire and cook the meal, 25
                        The last, perhaps, that we shall taste;
                        I hear the Swamp Fox round us steal,
                        And that's a sign we move in haste.
                        He whistles to the scouts, and hark!
                        You hear his order calm and low. 30
                        Come, wave your torch across the dark,
                        And let us see the boys that go.


                        We may not see their forms again,
                        God help 'em, should they find the strife!
                        For they are strong and fearless men, 35
                        And make no coward terms for life;
                        They'll fight as long as Marion bids,
                        And when he speaks the word to shy,

Page 10


                        Then, not till then, they turn their steeds,
                        Through thickening shade and swamp to fly. 40


                        Now stir the fire and lie at ease -
                        The scouts are gone, and on the brush
                        I see the Colonel bend his knees,
                        To take his slumbers too. But hush!
                        He's praying, comrades; 't is not strange; 45
                        The man that's fighting day by day
                        May well, when night comes, take a change,
                        And down upon his knees to pray.


                        Break up that hoecake, boys, and hand
                        The sly and silent jug that 's there; 50
                        I love not it should idly stand
                        When Marion's men have need of cheer.
                        'T is seldom that our luck affords
                        A stuff like this we just have quaffed,
                        And dry potatoes on our boards 55
                        May always call for such a draught.


                        Now pile the brush and roll the log;
                        Hard pillow, but a soldier's head
                        That's half the time in brake and bog
                        Must never think of softer bed. 60
                        The owl is hooting to the night,
                        The cooter crawling o'er the bank,
                        And in that pond the flashing light
                        Tells where the alligator sank.


                        What! 't is the signal! start so soon, 65
                        And through the Santee swamp so deep,
                        Without the aid of friendly moon,
                        And we, Heaven help us! half asleep!

Page 11


                        But courage, comrades! Marion leads;
                        The Swamp Fox takes us out to-night; 70
                        So clear your swords and spur your steeds,
                        There's goodly chance, I think, of fight.


                        We follow where the Swamp Fox guides,
                        We leave the swamp and cypress tree,
                        Our spurs are in our coursers' sides, 75
                        And ready for the strife are we.
                        The Tory camp is now in sight,
                        And there he cowers within his den;
                        He hears our shouts, he dreads the fight,
                        He fears, and flies from Marion's men. 80

ISRAFEL

EDGAR ALLAN POE

        "And the angel, Israfel, whose heartstrings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures." - The Koran.


                        IN Heaven a spirit doth dwell
                        Whose heartstrings are a lute;
                        None sing so wildly well
                        As the angel Israfel,
                        And the giddy stars (so legends tell), 5
                        Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
                        Of his voice, all mute.


                        Tottering above
                        In her highest noon,
                        The enamored moon 10
                        Blushes with love,
                        While, to listen, the red levin
                        (With the rapid Pleiads, even,

Page 12


                        Which were seven)
                        Pauses in Heaven. 15


                        And they say (the starry choir
                        And the other listening things)
                        That Israfeli's fire
                        Is owing to that lyre
                        By which he sits and sings, - 20
                        The trembling living wire
                        Of those unusual strings.


                        But the skies that angel trod,
                        Where deep thoughts are a duty,
                        Where Love's a grown-up God, 25
                        Where the Houri glances are
                        Imbued with all the beauty
                        Which we worship in a star.


                        Therefore thou art not wrong,
                        Israfeli, who despisest 30
                        An unimpassioned song;
                        To thee the laurels belong,
                        Best bard, because the wisest:
                        Merrily live, and long!


                        The ecstasies above 35
                        With thy burning measures suit:
                        Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
                        With the fervor of thy lute;
                        Well may the stars be mute!


                        Yes, Heaven is thine; but this 40
                        Is a world of sweets and sours;
                        Our flowers are merely - flowers,

Page 13


                        And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
                        Is the sunshine of ours.


                        If I could dwell 45
                        Where Israfel
                        Hath dwelt, and he where I,
                        He might not sing so wildly well
                        A mortal melody,
                        While a bolder note than this might swell 50
                        From my lyre within the sky.

ANNABEL LEE

EDGAR ALLAN POE

        This poem appeared in the New York Tribune, October 9, 1849, two days after Poe's death. Presumably the poem refers to Mrs. Poe. 1


                        IT was many and many a year ago,
                        In a kingdom by the sea,
                        That a maiden there lived whom you may know
                        By the name of Annabel Lee;
                        And this maiden she lived with no other thought 5
                        Than to love and be loved by me.


                        I was a child and she was a child,
                        In this kingdom by the sea;
                        But we loved with a love that was more than love,
                        I and my Annabel Lee; 10
                        With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
                        Coveted her and me.


1. For another interpretation see vol. VII, p. 218, of the Virginia edition of Poe's Works, edited by James A. Harrison, New York, 1902.
Page 14


                        And this was the reason that, long ago,
                        In this kingdom by the sea,
                        A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 15
                        My beautiful Annabel Lee;
                        So that her highborn kinsmen came
                        And bore her away from me,
                        To shut her up in a sepulcher
                        In this kingdom by the sea. 20


                        The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
                        Went envying her and me;
                        Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
                        In this kingdom by the sea)
                        That the wind came out of the cloud by night, 25
                        Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.


                        But our love it was stronger by far than the love
                        Of those who were older than we,
                        Of many far wiser than we;
                        And neither the angels in heaven above, 30
                        Nor the demons down under the sea,
                        Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
                        Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:


                        For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
                        Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 35
                        And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
                        Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
                        And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
                        Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride,
                        In her sepulcher there by the sea, 40
                        In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Page 15

THE RAVEN

EDGAR ALLAN POE

        First published in The Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845.


                        ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
                        Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, -
                        While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
                        As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
                        " 'T is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door: 5
                        Only this and nothing more."


                        Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
                        And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
                        Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
                        From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore, 10
                        For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore:
                        Nameless here for evermore.


                        And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
                        Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

Page 16


                        So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating: 15
                        " 'T is some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,
                        Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door:
                        This it is and nothing more."


                        Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
                        "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; 20
                        But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
                        And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
                        That I scarce was sure I heard you" - here I opened wide the door: -
                        Darkness there and nothing more.


                        Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, 25
                        Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
                        But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
                        And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
                        This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"
                        Merely this and nothing more. 30


                        Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Page 17


                        Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
                        "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
                        Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore;
                        Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore: 35
                        'T is the wind and nothing more."


                        Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
                        In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
                        Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
                        But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door, 40
                        Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door:
                        Perched, and sat, and nothing more.


                        Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling
                        By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, -
                        "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, 45
                        Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore:
                        Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
                        Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Page 18


                        Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
                        Though his answer little meaning - little relevancy bore; 50
                        For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
                        Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door,
                        Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
                        With such name as "Nevermore."


                        But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only 55
                        That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
                        Nothing further then he uttered, not a feather then he fluttered,
                        Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before:
                        On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before."
                        Then the bird said, "Nevermore." 60


                        Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
                        "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
                        Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
                        Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore:
                        Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore 65
                        Of 'Never - nevermore.' "

Page 19


                        But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
                        Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
                        Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
                        Fancy into fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore, 70
                        What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
                        Meant in croaking "Nevermore."


                        Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
                        To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
                        This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining 75
                        On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
                        But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er
                        She shall press, ah, nevermore!


                        Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
                        Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. 80
                        "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he hath sent thee
                        Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
                        Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"
                        Quoth the Raven. "Nevermore."

Page 20


                        "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! prophet still, if bird or devil! 85
                        Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
                        Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
                        On this home by Horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore:
                        Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!"
                        Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 90


                        "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! prophet still, if bird or devil!
                        By that Heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore,
                        Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
                        It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore:
                        Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore!" 95
                        Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."


                        "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting:
                        "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
                        Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
                        Leave my loneliness unbroken! quit the bust above my door! 100
                        Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
                        Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Page 21


                        And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
                        On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
                        And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, 105
                        And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor:
                        And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
                        Shall be lifted - nevermore!


ODE TO THE MOCKING-BIRD

ALBERT PIKE


                        THOU glorious mocker of the world! I hear
                        Thy many voices ringing through the glooms
                        Of these green solitudes; and all the clear,
                        Bright joyance of their song enthralls the ear,
                        And floods the heart. Over the spherèd tombs 5
                        Of vanished nations rolls thy music tide;
                        No light from History's starlit page illumes
                        The memory of these nations; they have died:
                        None care for them but thou; and thou mayst sing
                        O'er me perhaps, as now thy clear notes ring 10
                        Over their bones by whom thou once wast deified.


                        Glad scorner of all cities! Thou dost leave
                        The world's mad turmoil and incessant din,
                        Where none in other's honesty believe,
                        Where the old sigh, the young turn gray and grieve,
                        Where misery gnaws the maiden's heart within:
                        Thou fleest far into the dark green woods,

Page 22


                        Where, with thy flood of music, thou canst win
                        Their heart to harmony, and where intrudes
                        No discord on thy melodies. O, where, 20
                        Among the sweet musicians of the air,
                        Is one so dear as thou to these odd solitudes?


                        Ha! what a burst was that! The Æolian strain
                        Goes floating through the tangled passages
                        Of the still woods, and now it comes again, 25
                        A multitudinous melody, - like a rain
                        Of glassy music under echoing trees,
                        Close by a ringing lake. It wraps the soul
                        With a bright harmony of happiness,
                        Even as a gem is wrapped when round it roll 30
                        Thin waves of crimson flame; till we become,
                        With the excess of perfect pleasure, dumb,
                        And pant like a swift runner clinging to the goal.


                        I cannot love the man who doth not love,
                        As men love light, the song of happy birds; 35
                        For the first visions that my boy heart wove
                        To fill its sleep with, were that I did rove
                        Through the fresh woods, what time the snowy herds
                        Of morning clouds shrunk from the advancing sun
                        Into the depths of Heaven's blue heart, as words 40
                        From the Poet's lips float gently, one by one,
                        And vanish in the human heart; and then
                        I reveled in such songs, and sorrowed when,
                        With noon-heat overwrought, the music-gush was done.


                        I would, sweet bird, that I might live with thee, 45
                        Amid the eloquent grandeur of these shades,
                        Alone with nature - but it may not be;

Page 23


                        I have to struggle with the stormy sea
                        Of human life until existence fades
                        Into death's darkness. Thou wilt sing and soar 50
                        Through the thick woods and shadow-checkered glades,
                        While pain and sorrow cast no dimness o'er
                        The brilliance of thy heart; but I must wear,
                        As now, my garments of regret and care,
                        As penitents of old their galling sackcloth wore. 55


                        Yet why complain? What though fond hopes deferred
                        Have overshadowed Life's green paths with gloom?
                        Content's soft music is not all unheard;
                        There is a voice sweeter than shine, sweet bird,
                        To welcome me within my humble home: 60
                        There is an eye, with love's devotion bright,
                        The darkness of existence to illume.
                        Then why complain? When Death shall cast his blight
                        Over the spirit, my cold bones shall rest
                        Beneath these trees; and from thy swelling breast, 65
                        Over them pour thy song, like a rich flood of light.

LAND OF THE SOUTH

ALEXANDER BEAUFORT MEEK

        These stanzas were introduced in an address entitled "The Day of Freedom," delivered in 1838.

I

                        LAND of the South! - imperial land! -
                        How proud thy mountains rise!
                        How sweet thy scenes on every hand!
                        How fair thy covering skies!

Page 24


                        But not for this - oh, not for these - 5
                        I love thy fields to roam;
                        Thou hast a dearer spell to me, -
                        Thou art my native home!

II


                        Thy rivers roll their liquid wealth,
                        Unequaled to the sea; 10
                        Thy hills and valleys bloom with health,
                        And green with verdure be!
                        But not for thy proud ocean streams,
                        Not for thy azure dome,
                        Sweet, sunny South, I cling to thee, - 15
                        Thou art my native home!

III


                        I've stood beneath Italia's clime,
                        Beloved of tale and song,
                        On Helvyn's 1 hills, proud and sublime,
                        Where nature's wonders throng; 20
                        By Tempe's classic sunlit streams,
                        Where Gods, of old, did roam, -
                        But ne'er have found so fair a land
                        As thou, my native home!

IV


                        And thou hast prouder glories, too, 25
                        Than nature ever gave;
                        Peace sheds o'er thee her genial dew,
                        And Freedom's pinions wave;
                        Fair Science flings her pearls around,
                        Religion lifts her dome, - 30
                        These, these endear thee to my heart,
                        My own, loved native home!

1. Helvyn, poetical name for Switzerland.
Page 25

V


                        And "Heaven's best gift to man" is thine -
                        God bless thy rosy girls!
                        Like sylvan flowers they sweetly shine, 35
                        Their hearts are pure as pearls!
                        And grace and goodness circle them,
                        Where'er their footsteps roam;
                        How can I then, whilst loving them,
                        Not love my native home? 40

VI


                        Land of the South! - imperial land! -
                        Then here 's a health to thee:
                        Long as thy mountain barriers stand,
                        May'st thou be blest and free!
                        May dark dissension's banner ne'er 45
                        Wave o'er thy fertile loam!
                        But should it come, there's one will die
                        To save his native home!


FLORENCE VANE

PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE

        Published in The Gentleman's Magazine in 1839, while Poe was its editor. It was not personal in its address.


                        I LOVED thee long and dearly,
                        Florence Vane;
                        My life's bright dream and early
                        Hath come again;
                        I renew in my fond vision 5
                        My heart's dear pain,
                        My hope and thy derision,
                        Florence Vane!

Page 26


                        The ruin, lone and hoary,
                        The ruin old, 10
                        Where thou didst hark my story,
                        At even told, -
                        That spot - the hues Elysian
                        Of sky and plain -
                        I treasure in my vision, 15
                        Florence Vane.


                        Thou wast lovelier than the roses
                        In their prime;
                        Thy voice excelled the closes
                        Of sweetest rhyme; 20
                        Thy heart was as a river
                        Without a main.
                        Would I had loved thee never,
                        Florence Vane!


                        But, fairest, coldest wonder 25
                        Thy glorious clay
                        Lieth the green sod under -
                        Alas the day!
                        And it boots not to remember
                        Thy disdain - 30
                        To quicken love's pale ember,
                        Florence Vane!


                        The lilies of the valley
                        By young graves weep,
                        The pansies love to dally 35
                        Where maidens sleep:
                        May their bloom, in beauty vying,
                        Never wane
                        Where thine earthly part is lying,
                        Florence Vane! 40

Page 27


THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

THEODORE O'HARA

        Read by its author when his comrades who had fallen in Mexico were buried in Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1847.


                        THE muffled drum's sad roll has beat
                        The soldier's last tattoo;
                        No more on life's parade shall meet
                        That brave and fallen few.
                        On Fame's eternal camping-ground 5
                        Their silent tents are spread,
                        And Glory guards, with solemn round,
                        The bivouac of the dead.


                        No rumor of the foe's advance
                        Now swells upon the wind; 10
                        No troubled thought at midnight haunts
                        Of loved ones left behind;
                        No vision of the morrow's strife
                        The warrior's dream alarms;
                        No braying horn nor screaming fife 15
                        At dawn shall call to arms.


                        Their shivered swords are red with rust,
                        Their plumèd heads are bowed;
                        Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
                        Is now their martial shroud. 20
                        And plenteous funeral tears have washed
                        The red stains from each brow,
                        And the proud forms, by battle gashed,
                        Are free from anguish now.


                        The neighing troop, the flashing blade, 25
                        The bugle's stirring blast,

Page 28


                        The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
                        The din and shout, are past;
                        Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal
                        Shall thrill with fierce delight 30
                        Those breasts that never more may feel
                        The rapture of the fight.


                        Like the fierce northern hurricane
                        That sweeps this great plateau,
                        Flushed with triumph yet to gain, 35
                        Came down the serried foe. 1
                        Who heard the thunder of the fray
                        Break o'er the field beneath,
                        Knew well the watchword of that day
                        Was "Victory or death." 40


                        Long had the doubtful conflict raged
                        O'er all that stricken plain,
                        For never fiercer fight had waged
                        The vengeful blood of Spain;
                        And still the storm of battle blew, 45
                        Still swelled the gory tide;
                        Not long, our stout old chieftain 2 knew,
                        Such odds his strength could bide.


                        'T was in that hour his stern command
                        Called to a martyr's grave 50
                        The flower of his beloved land
                        The nation's flag to save.
                        By rivers of their fathers' gore
                        His firstborn laurels grew,
                        And well he deemed the sons would pour 55
                        Their lives for glory too.


1. General Santa Anna commanded 21,000 Mexicans.

2. Zachary Taylor.
Page 29


                        Full many a norther's breath has swept
                        O'er Angostura's plain -
                        And long the pitying sky has wept
                        Above its moldering slain. 60
                        The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,
                        Or shepherd's pensive lay,
                        Alone awakes each sullen height
                        That frowned o'er that dread fray.


                        Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, 1 65
                        Ye must not slumber there,
                        Where stranger steps and tongues resound
                        Along the heedless air.
                        Your own proud land's heroic soil
                        Shall be your fitter grave; 70
                        She claims from War his richest spoil -
                        The ashes of her brave.


                        Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest,
                        Far from the gory field;
                        Borne to a Spartan mother's breast 75
                        On many a bloody shield;
                        The sunlight of their native sky
                        Smiles sadly on them here,
                        And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
                        The heroes' sepulcher. 80


                        Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead,
                        Dear as the blood ye gave;
                        No impious footstep here shall tread
                        The herbage of your grave;
                        Nor shall your glory be forgot 85
                        While Fame her record keeps,


1. "Kentucky" is an Indian word meaning "Dark and Bloody Ground."
Page 30


                        Or Honor points the hallowed spot
                        Where Valor proudly sleeps.


                        Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone
                        In deathless song shall tell, 90
                        When many a vanished age hath flown,
                        The story how ye fell;
                        Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
                        Nor Time's remorseless doom,
                        Shall dim one ray of glory's light 95
                        That gilds your glorious tomb.

THE LONG AGO 1

PHILO HENDERSON


                        OH! a wonderful stream is the river of Time,
                        As it runs through the realm of tears,
                        With a faultless rhythm, and musical rhyme,
                        And a broader sweep, and a surge sublime,
                        And blends with the ocean of years! 5


                        How the winters are drifting like flakes of snow,
                        And summers like buds between,
                        And the ears in the sheaf, - so they come and they go
                        On the river's breast with its ebb and flow,
                        As it glides in the shadow and sheen! 10


                        There 's a magical Isle in the river of Time
                        Where the softest of airs are playing;
                        There's a cloudless sky, and a tropical clime,


1. This poem is of disputed authorship, but is more commonly attributed to Benjamin F. Taylor of Colgate University.
Page 31


                        And a song as sweet as a vesper chime,
                        And the Junes with the roses are staying. 15


                        And the name of this Isle is the Long Ago,
                        And we bury our treasures there, -
                        There are brows of beauty, and bosoms of snow,
                        There are heaps of dust, - but we loved them so!
                        There are trinkets, and tresses of hair. 20


                        There are fragments of song that nobody sings,
                        And a part of an infant's prayer;
                        There 's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings,
                        There are broken vows and pieces of rings,
                        And the garments she used to wear. 25


                        There are hands that are waved when the fairy shore
                        By the mirage is lifted in air,
                        And we sometimes hear, through the turbulent roar,
                        Sweet voices heard in the days gone before,
                        When the wind down the river is fair. 30


                        Oh! remembered for aye be that blessed Isle,
                        All the day of life till the night;
                        When the evening comes with its beautiful smile,
                        And our eyes are closing to slumber awhile,
                        May that "Greenwood" of soul be in sight! 35

Page 32


LITTLE GIFFEN 1

FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR

        A true story of a boy whom Dr. Ticknor nursed back to life at Torch Hill, Georgia.


                        OUT of the focal and foremost fire,
                        Out of the hospital walls as dire,
                        Smitten of grapeshot and gangrene,
                        Eighteenth battle and he sixteen -
                        Specter such as you seldom see, 5
                        Little Giffen of Tennessee.


                        "Take him and welcome," the surgeon said;
                        "Not the doctor can help the dead!"
                        So we took him and brought him where
                        The balm was sweet in our summer air; 10
                        And we laid him down on a wholesome bed;
                        Utter Lazarus, heel to head!


                        And we watched the war with abated breath,
                        Skeleton boy against skeleton death!
                        Months of torture, how many such! 15
                        Weary weeks of the stick and crutch, -
                        And still a glint in the steel-blue eye
                        Told of a spirit that would n't die,


                        And did n't! Nay! more! in death's despite
                        The crippled skeleton learned to write - 20
                        "Dear mother!" at first, of course, and then
                        "Dear Captain!" inquiring about the men.


1. From Poems by Francis Orray Ticknor, collected and edited by Michell Cutliff Ticknor and issued by the Neale Publishing Company, New York.
Page 33


                        Captain's answer: "Of eighty and five,
                        Giffen and I are left alive."


                        "Johnston 1 pressed at the front," they say; - 25
                        Little Giffen was up and away!
                        A tear, his first, as he bade good-by,
                        Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.
                        "I'll write, if spared!" There was news of fight,
                        But none of Giffen - he did not write! 30


                        I sometimes fancy that were I King
                        Of the courtly Knights of Arthur's ring,
                        With the voice of the minstrel in mine ear
                        And the tender legend that trembles here,
                        I'd give the best on his bended knee - 35
                        The whitest soul of my chivalry -
                        For Little Giffen of Tennessee.


MUSIC IN CAMP

JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON

        The contending armies were encamped on opposite sides of the Rappahannock River, near Fredericksburg, during the winter of 1862-63.


                        Two armies covered hill and plain,
                        Where Rappahannock's waters
                        Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain
                        Of battle's recent slaughters.


                        The summer clouds lay pitched like tents 5
                        In meads of heavenly azure;


1. General Joseph E. Johnston, once commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Page 34


                        And each dread gun of the elements
                        Slept in its embrasure.


                        The breeze so softly blew it made
                        No forest leaf to quiver, 10
                        And the smoke of the random cannonade
                        Rolled slowly from the river.


                        And now, where circling hills looked down
                        With cannon grimly planted,
                        O'er listless camp and silent town 15
                        The golden sunset slanted.


                        When on the fervid air there came
                        A strain - now rich, now tender;
                        The music seemed itself aflame
                        With day's departing splendor. 20


                        A Federal band, which, eve and morn,
                        Played measures brave and nimble,
                        Had just struck up, with flute and horn
                        And lively clash of cymbal.


                        Down flocked the soldiers to the banks, 25
                        Till, margined by its pebbles,
                        One wooded shore was blue with "Yanks,"
                        And one was gray with "Rebels."


                        Then all was still, and then the band,
                        With movement light and tricksy, 30
                        Made stream and forest, hill and strand,
                        Reverberate with "Dixie."


                        The conscious stream with burnished glow
                        Went proudly o'er its pebbles,

Page 35


                        But thrilled throughout its deepest flow 35
                        With yelling of the Rebels.


                        Again a pause, and then again
                        The trumpets pealed sonorous,
                        And "Yankee Doodle" was the strain
                        To which the shore gave chorus. 40


                        The laughing ripple shoreward flew,
                        To kiss the shining pebbles;
                        Loud shrieked the swarming Boys in Blue
                        Defiance to the Rebels.


                        And yet once more the bugle sang 45
                        Above the stormy riot;
                        No shout upon the evening rang -
                        There reigned a holy quiet.


                        The sad, slow stream its noiseless flood
                        Poured over the glistening pebbles; 50
                        All silent now the Yankees stood,
                        And silent stood the Rebels.


                        No unresponsive soul had heard
                        That plaintive note's appealing,
                        So deeply "Home, Sweet Home" had stirred 55
                        The hidden founts of feeling.


                        Or Blue, or Gray, the soldier sees,
                        As by the wand of fairy,
                        The cottage 'neath the live oak trees,
                        The cabin by the prairie. 60


                        Or cold, or warm, his native skies
                        Bend in their beauty o'er him;

Page 36


                        Seen through the tear mist in his eyes,
                        His loved ones stand before him.


                        As fades the iris after rain 65
                        In April's tearful weather,
                        The vision vanished, as the strain
                        And daylight died together.


                        But memory, waked by music's art,
                        Expressed in simplest numbers, 70
                        Subdued the sternest Yankee's heart,
                        Made light the Rebel's slumbers.


                        And fair the form of music shines,
                        That bright celestial creature,
                        Who still, 'mid war's embattled lines, 75
                        Gave this one touch of Nature.

CARCASSONNE 1

JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON


                        "I'M growing old, I've sixty years;
                        I've labored all my life in vain:
                        In all that time of hopes and fears
                        I've failed my dearest wish to gain.
                        I see full well that here below 5
                        Bliss unalloyed there is for none.
                        My prayer will ne'er fulfilment know
                        I never have seen Carcassonne,
                        I never have seen Carcassonne!


1. No finer translation of Gustav Nadaud's famous poem is known.
Page 37


                        "You see the city from the hill, 10
                        It lies beyond the mountains blue,
                        And yet to reach it one must still
                        Five long and weary leagues pursue,
                        And to return as many more!
                        Ah! had the vintage plenteous grown! 15
                        The grape withheld its yellow store!
                        I shall not look on Carcassonne,
                        I shall not look on Carcassonne!


                        "They tell me every day is there
                        Not more or less than Sunday gay: 20
                        In shining robes and garments fair
                        The people walk upon their way.
                        One gazes there on castle walls
                        As grand as those of Babylon,
                        A bishop and two generals! 25
                        I do not know fair Carcassonne,
                        I do not know fair Carcassonne!


                        "The vicar's right; he says that we
                        Are ever wayward, weak and blind,
                        He tells us in his homily 30
                        Ambition ruins all mankind;
                        Yet could I there two days have spent
                        While still the autumn sweetly shone,
                        Ah me! I might have died content
                        When I had looked on Carcassonne, 35
                        When I had looked on Carcassonne!


                        "Thy pardon, Father, I beseech,
                        In this my prayer if I append:
                        One something sees beyond his reach
                        From childhood to his journey's end. 40

Page 38


                        My wife, our little boy Aignon,
                        Have traveled even to Narbonne;
                        My grandchild has seen Perpignon,
                        And I have not seen Carcassonne,
                        And I have not seen Carcassonne!" 45


                        So crooned one day, close by Limoux,
                        A peasant double-bent with age;
                        "Rise up, my friend," said I; "with you
                        I'll go upon this pilgrimage."
                        We left next morning his abode, 50
                        But (Heaven forgive him) halfway on,
                        The old man died upon the road;
                        He never gazed on Carcassonne,
                        Each mortal has his Carcassonne!


THE WINDOW-PANES AT BRANDON 1

JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON


                        As within the old mansion the holiday throng
                        Reassembles in beauty and grace,
                        And some eye looking out of the window by chance,
                        These memorial records may trace -
                        How the past, like a swift-coming haze from the sea,
                        In an instant surrounds us once more, 6
                        While the shadowy figures of those we have loved,
                        All distinctly are seen on the shore!


                        Through the vista of years, stretching dimly away,
                        We but look, and a vision behold . . . 10


1. Upon the window-panes at Brandon, a well-known mansion on the James River in Virginia, names of many guests were cut with a diamond.
Page 39


                        Like some magical picture the sunset reveals
                        With its colors of crimson and gold,
                        All suffused with the glow of the hearth's ruddy blaze,
                        From beneath the gay "mistletoe bough,"
                        There are faces that break into smiles as divinely 15
                        As any that beam on us now.


                        While the Old Year departing strides ghost-like along
                        O'er the hills that are dark with the storm,
                        To the New the brave beaker is filled to the brim,
                        And the play of affection is warm: 20
                        Look once more . . . as the garlanded Spring reappears,
                        In her footsteps we welcome a train
                        Of fair women, whose eyes are as bright as the gem
                        That has cut their dear names on the pane.


                        From the canvas of Vandyke or Kneller that hangs 25
                        On the old-fashioned wainscoted wall,
                        Stately ladies, the favored of poets, look down
                        On the guests and the revel and all;
                        But their beauty, though wedded to eloquent verse,
                        And though rendered immortal by Art, 30
                        Yet outshines not the beauty that, breathing below,
                        In a moment takes captive the heart.


                        Many winters have since frosted over these panes
                        With the tracery work of the rime;
                        Many Aprils have brought back the birds to the lawn 35
                        From some far-away tropical clime:
                        But the guests of the season, alas! where are they?
                        Some, the shores of the stranger have trod,

Page 40


                        And some names have been long ago carved on the stone,
                        Where they sweetly rest under the sod. 40


                        How uncertain the record! the hand of a child
                        In its innocent sport, unawares,
                        May, at any time, lucklessly shatter the pane,
                        And thus cancel the story it bears;
                        Still a portion, at least, shall uninjured remain 45
                        Unto trustier tablets consigned,
                        The fond names that survive in the memory of friends
                        Who yet linger a season behind.


                        Recollect, O young soul, with ambition inspired!
                        Let the moral be read as we pass; 50
                        Recollect, the illusory tablets of fame
                        Have been ever as brittle as glass;
                        Oh! be not content with the name thus inscribed,
                        For as well may you trace it in dust;
                        But resolve to record it, where long it shall stand, 55
                        In the hearts of the good and the just.

BEFORE DEATH 1

MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON
I

                        How much would I care for it, could I know
                        That when I am under the grass or snow,
                        The ravelled garment of life's brief day
                        Folded, and quietly laid away;

1. The three poems by Margaret Junkin Preston are printed by courtesy of Little, Brown and Company.
Page 41


                        The spirit let loose from mortal bars, 5
                        And somewhere away among the stars:
                        How much would you think it would matter then
                        What praise was lavished upon me, when,
                        Whatever might be its stint or store,
                        It neither could help nor harm me more? 10

II

                        If midst of my toil they had but thought
                        To stretch a finger, I would have caught
                        Gladly such aid, to bear me through
                        Some bitter duty I had to do:
                        And when it was done, had I but heard 15
                        One breath of applause, one cheering word,
                        One cry of "Courage!" amid the strife,
                        So weighted for me, with death or life,
                        How would it have nerved my soul to strain
                        Through the whirl of the coming surge again! 20

III

                        What use for the rope, if it be not flung
                        Till the swimmer's grasp to the rock has clung?
                        What help in a comrade's bugle-blast
                        When the peril of Alpine heights is past?
                        What need that the spurring pæan roll 25
                        When the runner is safe beyond the goal?
                        What worth is eulogy's blandest breath
                        When whispered in ears that are hushed in death?
                        No! no! if you have but a word of cheer,
                        Speak it, while I am alive to hear! 30

Page 42

THE SHADE OF THE TREES

MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON

        "Let us pass over the river and rest under the shade of the trees " were the last words of Stonewall Jackson in 1863 Mrs. Preston was General Jackson's sister-in-law.


                        WHAT are the thoughts that are stirring his breast?
                        What is the mystical vision he sees?
                        "Let us pass over the river and rest
                        Under the shade of the trees."


                        Has he grown sick of his toils and his tasks? 5
                        Sighs the worn spirit for respite or ease?
                        Is it a moment's cool halt that he asks
                        Under the shade of the trees?


                        Is it the gurgle of waters whose flow
                        Ofttime has come to him borne on the breeze, 10
                        Memory listens to, lapsing so low,
                        Under the shade of the trees?


                        Nay - though the rasp of the flesh was so sore,
                        Faith, that had yearnings far keener than these,
                        Saw the soft sheen of the Thitherward Shore, 15
                        Under the shade of the trees; -


                        Caught the high psalms of ecstatic delight,
                        Heard the harps harping like soundings of seas,
                        Watched earth's assoiled ones walking in white
                        Under the shade of the trees. 20


                        O, was it strange he should pine for release,
                        Touched to the soul with such transports as these,

Page 43


                        He who so needed the balsam of peace,
                        Under the shade of the trees?


                        Yes, it was noblest for him - it was best 25
                        (Questioning naught of our Father's decrees)
                        There to pass over the river and rest
                        Under the shade of the trees!

GONE FORWARD

MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON

        Among the broken sentences uttered by General Lee on his death-bed (1870) was this: "Let the tent be struck, the General has gone forward."


                        YES, "Let the tent be struck": victorious morning
                        Through every crevice flashes in a day
                        Magnificent beyond all earth's adorning:
                        The night is over; wherefore should he stay?
                        And wherefore should our voices choke to say, 5
                        "The General has gone forward"?


                        Life's foughten field not once beheld surrender;
                        But with superb endurance, present, past,
                        Our pure commander, lofty, simple, tender,
                        Through good, through ill, held his high purpose fast, 10
                        Wearing his armor spotless, - till at last
                        Death gave the final "Forward!"


                        All hearts grew sudden palsied: Yet what said he
                        Thus summoned? - "Let the tent be struck!" - For when
                        Did call of duty fail to find him ready 15

Page 44


                        Nobly to do his work in sight of men,
                        For God's and for his country's sake - and then
                        To watch, wait, or go forward?


                        We will not weep, - we dare not! Such a story
                        As his large life writes on the century's years, 20
                        Should crowd our bosoms with a flush of glory,
                        That manhood's type, supremest that appears
                        To-day, he shows the ages. Nay, no tears
                        Because he has gone forward!


                        Gone forward? - whither? Where the marshalled legions, 25
                        Christ's well-worn soldiers, from their conflicts cease, -
                        Where Faith's true Red-Cross Knights repose in regions
                        Thick-studded with the calm, white tents of peace, -
                        Thither, right joyful to accept release,
                        The General has gone forward! 30


WASHINGTON - PATER PATRIÆ 1

JAMES BARRON HOPE


                        ACHILLES came from Homer's Jove-like brain,
                        Pavilioned 'mid his ships where Thetis trod;
                        But he whose image dominates this plain
                        Came from the hand of God!


1. This is an excerpt from "Arms and the Man," a poem recited on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. This and the poem following are printed by courtesy of Mrs. Janie Hope Marr.
Page 45


                        Yet of his life, which shall all time adorn, 5
                        I dare not sing; to try the theme would be
                        To drink as 't were that Scandinavian Horn
                        Whose tip was in the Sea.


                        I bow my head and go upon my ways,
                        Who tells that story can but gild the gold - 10
                        Could I pile Alps on Apennines of praise
                        The tale would not be told.


                        Not his the blade which lyric fables say
                        Cleft Pyrenees from ridge to nether bed,
                        But his the sword which cleared the Sacred Way 15
                        For Freedom's feet to tread.


                        Not Cæsar's genius nor Napoleon's skill
                        Gave him proud mast'ry o'er the trembling earth;
                        But great in honesty, and sense and will -
                        He was the "man of worth." 20


                        He knew not North, nor South, nor West, nor East:
                        Childless himself, Father of States he stood,
                        Strong and sagacious as a Knight turned Priest,
                        And vowed to deeds of good.


                        Compared with all Earth's heroes I may say 25
                        He was, with even half his virtues hid,
                        Greater in what his hand refrained than they
                        Were great in what they did.


                        And thus his image dominates all time,
                        Uplifted like the everlasting dome 30
                        Which rises in a miracle sublime
                        Above eternal Rome.

Page 46


                        On Rome's once blooming plain where'er we stray
                        That dome majestic rises on the view,
                        Its Cross a-glow with every wandering ray 35
                        That shines along the Blue.


                        So his vast image shadows all the lands,
                        So holds forever Man's adoring eye,
                        And o'er the Union which he left it stands
                        Our Cross against the sky! 40


OUR ANGLO-SAXON TONGUE

JAMES BARRON HOPE


                        GOOD is the Saxon speech! clear, short, and strong,
                        Its clean-cut words, fit both for prayer and song;
                        Good is this tongue for all the needs of life;
                        Good for sweet words with friend, or child, or wife.
                        Seax - short sword - and like a sword its sway 5
                        Hews out a path 'mid all the forms of speech,
                        For in itself it hath the power to teach
                        Itself, while many tongues slow fade away.


                        'Tis good for laws; for vows of youth and maid;
                        Good for the preacher; or shrewd folk in trade; 10
                        Good for sea-calls when loud the rush of spray;
                        Good for war-cries where men meet hilt to hilt,
                        And man's best blood like new-trod wine is spilt, -
                        Good for all times, and good for what thou wilt!

Page 47


A COMMON THOUGHT 1

HENRY TIMROD


                        SOMEWHERE on this earthly planet
                        In the dust of flowers to be,
                        In the dewdrop, in the sunshine,
                        Sleeps a solemn day for me.


                        At this wakeful hour of midnight 5
                        I behold it dawn in mist,
                        And I hear a sound of sobbing
                        Through the darkness - hist! oh, hist!


                        In a dim and murky chamber,
                        I am breathing life away; 10
                        Some one draws a curtain softly,
                        And I watch the broadening day.


                        As it purples in the zenith,
                        As it brightens on the lawn,
                        There's a hush of death about me, 15
                        And a whisper, "He is gone!" 2


1. The three following poems by Henry Timrod are printed by courtesy of the B. F. Johnson Publishing Company.

2. A poem strangely prophetic of the manner of the poet's death.


Page 48

ODE

HENRY TIMROD

        Sung on the occasion of decorating the graves of the Confederate Dead, at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, South Carolina, 1867.

I

                        SLEEP sweetly in your humble graves,
                        Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
                        Though yet no marble column craves
                        The pilgrim here to pause.

II

                        In seeds of laurel in the earth 5
                        The blossom of your fame is blown,
                        And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
                        The shaft is in the stone!

III

                        Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years
                        Which keep in trust your storied tombs, 10
                        Behold! your sisters bring their tears,
                        And these memorial blooms.

IV

                        Small tributes! but your shades will smile
                        More proudly on these wreaths to-day,
                        Than when some cannon-moulded pile 15
                        Shall overlook this bay.

V

                        Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
                        There is no holier spot of ground
                        Than where defeated valor lies,
                        By mourning beauty crowned! 20

Page 49

THE COTTON BOLL

HENRY TIMROD

        This poem was written during the war between the States.


                        WHITE I recline
                        At ease beneath
                        This immemorial pine,
                        Small sphere!
                        (By dusky fingers brought this morning here 5
                        And shown with boastful smiles),
                        I turn thy cloven sheath,
                        Through which the soft white fibers peer,
                        That, with their gossamer bands,
                        Unite, like love, the sea-divided lands, 10
                        And slowly, thread by thread,
                        Draw forth the folded strands,
                        Than which the trembling line,
                        By whose frail help yon startled spider fled
                        Down the tall spear grass from his swinging bed, 15
                        Is scarce more fine;
                        And as the tangled skein
                        Unravels in my hands,
                        Betwixt me and the noonday light,
                        A veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles 20
                        The landscape broadens on my sight,
                        As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell
                        Like that which, in the ocean shell,
                        With mystic sound,
                        Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round, 25
                        And turns some city lane
                        Into the restless main,
                        With all his capes and isles!

Page 50


                        Yonder bird,
                        Which floats, as if at rest, 30
                        In those blue tracts above the thunder, where
                        No vapors cloud the stainless air,
                        And never sound is heard,
                        Unless at such rare time
                        When, from the City of the Blest, 35
                        Rings down some golden chime,
                        Sees not from his high place
                        So vast a cirque of summer space
                        As widens round me in one mighty field,
                        Which, rimmed by seas and sands, 40
                        Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beams
                        Of gray Atlantic dawns;
                        And, broad as realms made up of many lands,
                        Is lost afar
                        Behind the crimson hills and purple lawns 45
                        Of sunset, among plains which roll their streams
                        Against the Evening Star!
                        And lo!
                        To the remotest point of sight,
                        Although I gaze upon no waste of snow, 50
                        The endless field is white;
                        And the whole landscape glows,
                        For many a shining league away,
                        With such accumulated light
                        As Polar lands would flash beneath a tropic day! 55
                        Nor lack there (for the vision grows,
                        And the small charm within my hands -
                        More potent even than the fabled one,
                        Which oped whatever golden mystery
                        Lay hid in fairy wood or magic vale, 60
                        The curious ointment of the Arabian tale -
                        Beyond all mortal sense

Page 51


                        Doth stretch my sight's horizon, and I see,
                        Beneath its simple influence,
                        As if with Uriel's crown, 65
                        I stood in some great temple of the Sun,
                        And looked, as Uriel, down!)
                        Nor lack there pastures rich and fields all green
                        With all the common gifts of God,
                        For temperate airs and torrid sheen 70
                        Weave Edens of the sod;
                        Through lands which look one sea of billowy gold
                        Broad rivers wind their devious ways;
                        A hundred isles in their embraces fold
                        A hundred luminous bays; 75
                        And through yon purple haze
                        Vast mountains lift their plumèd peaks cloud-crowned;
                        And, save where up their sides the plowman creeps,
                        An unhewn forest girds them grandly round,
                        In whose dark shades a future navy sleeps! 80
                        Ye Stars, which, though unseen, yet with me gaze
                        Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth!
                        Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays
                        Above it, as to light a favorite hearth!
                        Ye Clouds, that in your temples in the west 85
                        See nothing brighter than its humblest flowers!
                        And you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breast
                        Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers!
                        Bear witness with me in my song of praise,
                        And tell the world that, since the world began, 90
                        No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays,
                        Or given a home to man!


                        But these are charms already widely blown!
                        His be the meed whose pencil's trace
                        Hath touched our very swamps with grace, 95

Page 52


                        And round whose tuneful way
                        All Southern laurels bloom;
                        The Poet of "The Woodlands," 1 unto whom
                        Alike are known
                        The flute's low breathing and the trumpet's tone, 100
                        And the soft west wind's sighs;
                        But who shall utter all the debt,
                        O land wherein all powers are met
                        That bind a people's heart,
                        The world doth owe thee at this day, 105
                        And which it never can repay,
                        Yet scarcely deigns to own!
                        Where sleeps the poet who shall fitly sing
                        The source wherefrom doth spring
                        That mighty commerce which, confined 110
                        To the mean channels of no selfish mart,
                        Goes out to every shore
                        Of this broad earth, and throngs the sea with ships
                        That bear no thunders; hushes hungry lips
                        In alien lands; 115
                        Joins with a delicate web remotest strands;
                        And gladdening rich and poor,
                        Doth gild Parisian domes,
                        Or feed the cottage smoke of English homes,
                        And only bounds its blessings by mankind? 120
                        In offices like these thy mission lies,
                        My Country! and it shall not end
                        As long as rain shall fall and Heaven bend
                        In blue above thee. Though thy foes be hard
                        And cruel as their weapons, it shall guard 125
                        Thy hearthstones as a bulwark; make thee great
                        In white and bloodless state;


1. William Gilmore Simms. His home near Charleston, South Carolina, was called "The Woodlands."
Page 53


                        And haply, as the years increase -
                        Still working through its humbler reach
                        With that large wisdom which the ages teach - 130
                        Revive the half-dead dream of universal peace!
                        As men who labor in that mine
                        Of Cornwall, hollowed out beneath the bed
                        Of ocean, when a storm rolls overhead,
                        Hear the dull booming of the world of brine 135
                        Above them, and a mighty muffled roar
                        Of winds and waters, yet toil calmly on,
                        And split the rock, and pile the massive ore,
                        Or carve a niche or shape the archèd roof;
                        So I, as calmly, weave my woof 140
                        Of song, chanting the days to come,
                        Unsilenced, though the quiet summer air
                        Stirs with the bruit of battles, and each dawn
                        Wakes from its starry silence to the hum
                        Of many gathering armies. Still, 145
                        In that we sometimes hear,
                        Upon the Northern winds, the voice of woe
                        Not wholly drowned in triumph, though I know
                        The end must crown us, and a few brief years
                        Dry all our tears, 150
                        I may not sing too gladly. To thy will
                        Resigned, O Lord! we cannot all forget
                        That there is much even Victory must regret.
                        And, therefore, not too long
                        From the great burthen of our country's wrong 155
                        Delay our just release!
                        And, if it may be, save
                        These sacred fields of peace
                        From stain of patriot or of hostile blood!
                        O, help us, Lord! to roll the crimson flood 160
                        Back on its course, and while our banners wing

Page 54


                        Northward, strike with us! till the Goth shall cling
                        To his own blasted altar stones, and crave
                        Mercy; and we shall grant it, and dictate
                        The lenient future of his fate 165
                        There, where some rotting ships and crumbling quays
                        Shall one day mark the Port which ruled the Western seas. 1

MY STUDY 2

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

        Written before his mansion in Charleston, South Carolina, was destroyed by fire. It was published in 1859.


                        THIS is my world! within these narrow walls,
                        I own a princely service. The hot care
                        And tumult of our frenzied life are here
                        But as a ghost and echo; what befalls
                        In the far mart to me is less than naught; 5
                        I walk the fields of quiet Arcadies,
                        And wander by the brink of hoary seas,
                        Calmed to the tendance of untroubled thought;
                        Or if a livelier humor should enhance
                        The slow-time pulse, 't is not for present strife, 10
                        The sordid zeal with which our age is rife,
                        Its mammon conflicts crowned by fraud or chance,
                        But gleamings of the lost, heroic life,
                        Flashed through the gorgeous vistas of romance.


1. New York, considered by many Southerners at that time as an unjust competitor for trade.

2. The poems by Paul Hamilton Hayne are printed by courtesy of William H. Hayne, the son of the author.


Page 55

THE PINE'S MYSTERY

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

        "Copse Hill," Hayne's Georgia home after his home in Charleston was sacrificed to war, was surrounded by pines.

I

                        LISTEN! the sombre foliage of the Pine,
                        A swart Gitana 1 of the woodland trees,
                        Is answering what we may but half divine
                        To those soft whispers of the twilight breeze!

II

                        Passion and mystery murmur through the leaves, 5
                        Passion and mystery, touched by deathless pain.
                        Whose monotone of long, low anguish grieves
                        For something lost that shall not live again!



THE WILL AND THE WING

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE


                        To have the will to soar, but not the wings,
                        Eyes fixed forever on a starry height,
                        Whence stately shapes of grand imaginings
                        Flash down the splendors of imperial light;


                        And yet to lack the charm that makes them ours, 5
                        The obedient vassals of that conquering spell,
                        Whose omnipresent and ethereal powers
                        Encircle Heaven, nor fear to enter Hell;


                        This is the doom of Tantalus - the thirst
                        For beauty's balmy fount to quench the fires 10


1. Gitana, a gypsy dancer.
Page 56


                        Of the wild passion that our souls have nurst
                        In hopeless promptings - unfulfilled desires.


                        Yet would I rather in the outward state
                        Of Song's immortal temple lay me down,
                        A beggar basking by that radiant gate, 15
                        Than bend beneath the haughtiest empire's crown!


                        For sometimes, through the bars, my ravished eyes
                        Have caught brief glimpses of a life divine,
                        And seen afar, mysterious rapture rise
                        Beyond the veil that guards the inmost shrine. 20

A DREAM OF THE SOUTH WINDS

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE


                        O FRESH, how fresh and fair
                        Through the crystal gulfs of air,
                        The fairy South Wind floateth on her subtle wings of balm!
                        And the green earth lapped in bliss,
                        To the magic of her kiss 5
                        Seems yearning upward fondly through the golden- crested calm!


                        From the distant Tropic strand,
                        Where the billows, bright and bland,
                        Go creeping, curling round the palms with sweet, faint under-tune,
                        From its fields of purpling flowers 10
                        Still wet with fragrant showers,
                        The happy South Wind lingering sweeps the royal blooms of June.

Page 57


                        All heavenly fancies rise
                        On the perfume of her sighs,
                        Which steep the inmost spirit in a languor rare and fine, 15
                        And a peace more pure than sleep's
                        Unto dim, half-conscious deeps,
                        Transports me, lulled and dreaming, on its twilight tides divine.


                        Those dreams! ah me! the splendor,
                        So mystical and tender, 20
                        Wherewith like soft heat-lightnings they gird their meaning round,
                        And those waters, calling, calling,
                        With a nameless charm enthralling,
                        Like the ghost of music melting on a rainbow spray of sound!


                        Touch, touch me not, nor wake me, 25
                        Lest grosser thoughts o'ertake me,
                        From earth receding faintly with her dreary din and jars -
                        What viewless arms caress me?
                        What whispered voices bless me,
                        With welcomes dropping dewlike from the weird and wondrous stars? 30


                        Alas! dim, dim, and dimmer
                        Grows the preternatural glimmer
                        Of that trance the South Wind brought me on her subtle wings of balm,
                        For behold! its spirit flieth,
                        And its fairy murmur dieth, 35
                        And the silence closing round me is a dull and soulless calm!

Page 58

IN HARBOR 1

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE


                        I THINK it is over, over,
                        I think it is over at last,
                        Voices of foeman and lover,
                        The sweet and the bitter have passed:
                        Life, like a tempest of ocean 5
                        Hath outblown its ultimate blast;
                        There's but a faint sobbing seaward
                        While the calm of the tide deepens leeward,
                        And behold! like the welcoming quiver
                        Of heart-pulses throbbed thro' the river, 10
                        Those lights in the harbor at last,
                        The heavenly harbor at last!


                        I feel it is over, over!
                        For the winds and the waters surcease;
                        Ah! - few were the days of the rover 15
                        That smiled in the beauty of peace!
                        And distant and dim was the omen
                        That hinted redress or release:
                        From the ravage of life, and its riot
                        What marvel I yearn for the quiet 20
                        Which bides in the harbor at last?
                        For the lights with their welcoming quiver
                        That throbbed through the sanctified river
                        Which girdles the harbor at last,
                        This heavenly harbor at last? 25


                        I know it is over, over,
                        I know it is over at last!


1. Among his very latest poems.
Page 59


                        Down sail! the sheathed anchor uncover,
                        For the stress of the voyage has passed:
                        Life, like a tempest of ocean 30
                        Hath outbreathed its ultimate blast;
                        There's but a faint sobbing seaward;
                        While the calm of the tide deepens leeward;
                        And behold! like the welcoming quiver
                        Of heart-pulses throbbed thro' the river, 35
                        Those lights in the harbor at last,
                        The heavenly harbor at last!

MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND 1

JAMES RYDER RANDALL

        Written in Louisiana when the author heard of the clash between the Massachusetts troops and the citizens of his native city, Baltimore, April 19, 1861. The poem was written on April 23, 1861.


                        THE despot's heel is on thy shore,
                        Maryland!
                        His torch is at thy temple door,
                        Maryland!
                        Avenge the patriotic gore 5
                        That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
                        And be the battle queen of yore,
                        Maryland, my Maryland!


                        Hark to an exiled son's appeal,
                        Maryland! 10
                        My Mother State, to thee I kneel,
                        Maryland!


1. For a full account of this poem, see Introduction to Poems of James Ryder Randall, edited by Matthew Page Andrews.
Page 60


                        For life and death, for woe and weal,
                        Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
                        And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, 15
                        Maryland, my Maryland!


                        Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
                        Maryland!
                        Thy beaming sword shall never rust,
                        Maryland! 20
                        Remember Carroll's 1 sacred trust,
                        Remember Howard's 2 warlike thrust,
                        And all thy slumberers with the just,
                        Maryland, my Maryland!


                        Come! 't is the red dawn of the day, 25
                        Maryland!
                        Come with thy panoplied array,
                        Maryland!
                        With Ringgold's 3 spirit for the fray,
                        With Watson's 4 blood at Monterey, 30
                        With fearless Lowe 5 and dashing May, 6
                        Maryland, my Maryland!


                        Dear Mother! burst the tyrant's chain,
                        Maryland!
                        Virginia should not call in vain, 35
                        Maryland!


1. Carroll was a delegate to the Continental Congress that framed the Declaration of Independence.
2. Howard, Lieutenant-Colonel at the battle of Cowpens.
3. Ringgold, killed at Palo Alto in the Mexican War.
4. Watson, Colonel in the Mexican War and killed at Monterey.
5. Lowe, a soldier in the Mexican War and later Governor of Maryland.
6. May, a leader at the battle of Monterey.
Page 61


                        She meets her sisters on the plain -
                        "Sic semper!" 1 'tis the proud refrain
                        That baffles minions back amain,
                        Maryland! 40
                        Arise in majesty again,
                        Maryland, my Maryland!


                        Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,
                        Maryland!
                        Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong, 45
                        Maryland!
                        Come to shine own heroic throng
                        Walking with Liberty along,
                        And chant thy dauntless slogan-song,
                        Maryland, my Maryland! 50


                        I see the blush upon thy cheek,
                        Maryland!
                        For thou west ever bravely meek,
                        Maryland!
                        But lo! there surges forth a shriek, 55
                        From hill to hill, from creek to creek,
                        Potomac calls to Chesapeake,
                        Maryland, my Maryland!


                        Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,
                        Maryland! 60
                        Thou wilt not crook to his control,
                        Maryland!
                        Better the fire upon thee roll,
                        Better the shot, the blade, the bowl,
                        Than crucifixion of the soul, 65
                        Maryland, my Maryland!


1. Sic semper tyrannis, Virginia's motto.
Page 62


                        I hear the distant thunder hum,
                        Maryland!
                        The Old Line bugle, fife, and drum,
                        Maryland! 70
                        She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb;
                        Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
                        She breathes - she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
                        Maryland, my Maryland!

THE CONQUERED BANNER 1

ABRAM J. RYAN

        This tribute to the Confederate flag was published in the Banner of the South, March, 1868.


                        FURL that Banner, for 't is weary;
                        Round its staff 't is drooping dreary;
                        Furl it, fold it, it is best;
                        For there 's not a man to wave it,
                        And there 's not a sword to save it, 5
                        And there 's not one left to lave it
                        In the blood which heroes gave it;
                        And its foes now scorn and brave it;
                        Furl it, hide it - let it rest!


                        Take that Banner down! 't is tattered; 10
                        Broken is its staff and shattered;
                        And the valiant hosts are scattered
                        Over whom it floated high.
                        O! 't is hard for us to fold it!
                        Hard to think there 's none to hold it; 15


1. The four following copyrighted poems by Abram J. Ryan are printed by courtesy of P. J. Kenedy and Sons, New York.
Page 63


                        Hard that those who once unrolled it
                        Now must furl it with a sigh.


                        Furl that Banner! furl it sadly!
                        Once ten thousands hailed it gladly,
                        And ten thousands wildly, madly, 20
                        Swore it should forever wave;
                        Swore that foeman's sword should never
                        Hearts like theirs entwined dissever,
                        Till that flag should float forever
                        O'er their freedom or their grave! 25


                        Furl it! for the hands that grasped it,
                        And the hearts that fondly clasped it,
                        Cold and dead are lying low;
                        And that Banner - it is trailing!
                        While around it sounds the wailing 30
                        Of its people in their woe.


                        For, though conquered, they adore it!
                        Love the cold, dead hands that bore it!
                        Weep for those who fell before it!
                        Pardon those who trailed and tore it! 35
                        But, O! wildly they deplore it,
                        Now who furl and fold it so.


                        Furl that Banner! True, 't is gory,
                        Yet 't is wreathed around with glory,
                        And 't will live in song and story, 40
                        Though its folds are in the dust!
                        For its fame on brightest pages,
                        Penned by poets and by sages,
                        Shall go sounding down the ages -
                        Furl its folds though now we must. 45

Page 64


                        Furl that Banner, softly, slowly!
                        Treat it gently - it is holy -
                        For it droops above the dead.
                        Touch it not - unfold it never,
                        Let it droop there, furled forever, 50
                        For its people's hopes are fled!



THE SWORD OF LEE

ABRAM J. RYAN


                        FORTH from its scabbard, pure and bright,
                        Flashed the sword of Lee! 1
                        Far in front of the deadly fight,
                        High o'er the brave in the cause of Right,
                        Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light, 5
                        Led us to victory.


                        Out of its scabbard, where full long
                        It slumbered peacefully,
                        Roused from its rest by the battle's song,
                        Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong, 10
                        Guarding the right, avenging the wrong,
                        Gleamed the sword of Lee.


                        Forth from its scabbard, high in air
                        Beneath Virginia's sky -
                        And they who saw it gleaming there, 15


1. Robert E. Lee was born at "Stratford," Westmoreland County, Virginia, January 19,1807; graduated from the United States Military Academy, of which he was later (1852) Superintendent; in 1861 was offered command of the Federal Army, but resigned his commission and later joined the Confederacy; surrendered his army on April 9, 1865; died at Lexington, Virginia, on October 12, 1870.
Page 65


                        And knew who bore it, knelt to swear
                        That where that sword led they would dare
                        To follow - and to die.


                        Out of its scabbard! Never hand
                        Waved sword from stain as free; 20
                        Nor purer sword led braver band,
                        Nor braver bled for a brighter land,
                        Nor brighter land had a cause so grand,
                        Nor cause a chief like Lee!


                        Forth from its scabbard! How we prayed 25
                        That sword might victor be!
                        And when our triumph was delayed,
                        And many a heart grew sore afraid,
                        We still hoped on while gleamed the blade
                        Of noble Robert Lee. 30


                        Forth from its scabbard all in vain
                        Bright flashed the sword of Lee;
                        'T is shrouded now in its sheath again,
                        It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain,
                        Defeated, yet without a stain, 35
                        Proudly and peacefully.

A LAND WITHOUT RUINS

ABRAM J. RYAN

        A land without ruins is a land without memories - a land without memories is a land without history. A land that wears a laurel crown may be fair to see; but twine a few sad cypress leaves around the brow of any land, and be that land barren, beautiless, and bleak, it becomes lovely in its consecrated coronet of sorrow, and it wins the sympathy of the heart and of history. Crowns of roses fade - crowns of thorns endure. Calvaries and crucifixions take deepest hold of

Page 66

        humanity - the triumphs of might are transient - they pass and are forgotten - the sufferings of right are graven deepest on the chronicle of nations.


                        YES, give me the land where the ruins are spread,
                        And the living tread light on the hearts of the dead;
                        Yes, give me a land that is blest by the dust,
                        And bright with the deeds of the down-trodden just.
                        Yes, give me the land where the battle's red blast 5
                        Has flashed to the future the fame of the past;
                        Yes, give me the land that hath legends and lays
                        That tell of the memories of long vanished days:
                        Yes, give me a land that hath story and song!
                        Enshrine the strife of the right with the wrong! 10
                        Yes, give me a land with a grave in each spot,
                        And names in the graves that shall not be forgot;
                        Yes, give me the land of the wreck and the tomb;
                        There is grandeur in graves - there is glory in gloom;
                        For out of the gloom future brightness is born, 15
                        As after the night comes the sunrise of morn;
                        And the graves of the dead with the grass overgrown
                        May yet form the footstool of liberty's throne,
                        And each single wreck in the war-path of night,
                        Shall yet be a rock in the temple of right. 20

BETTER THAN GOLD

ABRAM J. RYAN


                        BETTER than grandeur, better than gold,
                        Than rank and titles a thousand fold,
                        Is a healthy body and a mind at ease,
                        And simple pleasures that always please,
                        A heart that can feel for another's woe, 5
                        With sympathies large enough to enfold
                        All men as brothers, is better than gold.

Page 67


                        Better than gold is a conscience clear,
                        Though toiling for bread in an humble sphere,
                        Doubly blessed with content and health, 10
                        Untried by the lusts and cares of wealth,
                        Lowly living and lofty thought
                        Adorn and ennoble a poor man's cot;
                        For mind and morals in nature's plan
                        Are the genuine tests of a gentleman. 15


                        Better than gold is the sweet repose
                        Of the sons of toil when the labors close;
                        Better than gold is the poor man's sleep,
                        And the balm that drops on his slumbers deep
                        Bring sleeping draughts on the downy bed, 20
                        Where luxury pillows its aching head,
                        The toiler simple opiate deems
                        A shorter route to the land of dreams.


                        Better than gold is a thinking mind,
                        That in the realm of books can find 25
                        A treasure surpassing Australian ore,
                        And live with the great and good of yore.
                        The sage's lore and the poet's lay,
                        The glories of empires passed away;
                        The world's great dream will thus unfold 30
                        And yield a pleasure better than gold.


                        Better than gold is a peaceful home
                        Where all the fireside characters come,
                        The shrine of love, the heaven of life,
                        Hallowed by mother, or sister, or wife. 35
                        However humble the home may be,
                        Or tried with sorrow by heaven's decree,
                        The blessings that never were bought or sold,
                        And centre there, are better than gold.

Page 68

ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC TO-NIGHT 1


                        "All quiet along the Potomac," they say,
                        "Except now and then a stray picket
                        Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro,
                        By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
                        'T is nothing - a private or two, now and then, 5
                        Will not count in the news of the battle;
                        Not an officer lost - only one of the men,
                        Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle."


                        All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
                        Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming; 10


1. This famous poem is accredited to Ethelinda (Elliott) Beers, "Ethel Lynn Beers" (1827-79) and is contained in a volume of 1879 entitled All's Quiet Along the Potomac, and Other Poems. The internal evidence points to authorship by a soldier, not by a woman, and by some one acquainted with the locality and conditions, not by an absentee; but the direct evidence is more significant. To quote Dr. C. Alphonso Smith (The Library of Southern Literature, vol. 14, p. 6083): "The evidence seems conclusive, however, for Thaddeus Oliver, of Twiggs County, Georgia. The poem was first published unsigned on October 21, 1861, 'in a Northern newspaper.' In Harper's Weekly, of November 30, 1861, it reappeared with Mrs. Beers's initials attached. Mr. Oliver, however, wrote the poem in August, 1861, and read it to several friends in camp with him in Virginia. In a letter dated 'Camp 2d Ga. Regt. near Centreville, Va., October 3, 1861,' Mr. John D. Ashton, of Georgia, writing to his wife, says: 'Upon my arrival at home, should I be so fortunate as to obtain the hoped-for furlough, I will read you the touching and beautiful poem mentioned in my letter of last week, " All Quiet Along the Potomac To-night, " written by my girlishly modest friend, Thaddeus Oliver, of the Buena Vista Guards.' " For further evidence see Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. VIII, pp. 255-60.
Page 69


                        Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
                        Or the light of the watch-fires, are gleaming.
                        A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night-wind
                        Through the forest-leaves softly is creeping;
                        While stars up above, with their glittering eyes, 15
                        Keep guard - for the army is sleeping.


                        There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,
                        As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
                        And thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed
                        Far away in the cot on the mountain. 20
                        His musket falls slack - his face, dark and grim,
                        Grows gentle with memories tender,
                        As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep -
                        For their mother - may Heaven defend her!


                        The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then, 25
                        That night, when the love yet unspoken
                        Leaped up to his lips - when low-murmured vows
                        Were pledged to be ever unbroken.
                        Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
                        He dashes off tears that are welling, 30
                        And gathers his gun closer up to its place
                        As if to keep down the heart-swelling.


                        He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree -
                        The footstep is lagging and weary;
                        Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
                        Toward the shades of the forest so dreary. 36
                        Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves?
                        Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
                        It looked like a rifle - "Ah! Mary, good-bye!"
                        And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing. 40

Page 70


                        All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
                        No sound save the rush of the river;
                        While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead -
                        The picket's off duty forever.

THE MONEYLESS MAN

HENRY THROOP STANTON


                        Is there no secret place on the face of the earth
                        Where charity dwelleth, where virtue has birth?
                        Where bosoms in mercy and kindness will heave,
                        When the poor and the wretched shall ask and receive?
                        Is there no place at all where a knock from the poor
                        Will bring a kind angel to open the door? 6
                        Ah, search the wide world wherever you can,
                        There is no open door for a Moneyless Man!


                        Go, look in yon hall where the chandelier's light
                        Drives off with its splendor the darkness of night, 10
                        Where the rich hanging velvet in shadowy fold
                        Sweeps gracefully down with its trimmings of gold,
                        And the mirrors of silver take up, and renew,
                        In long lighted vistas the 'wildering view:
                        Go there! at the banquet, and find if you can, 15
                        A welcoming smile for a Moneyless Man!


                        Go, look in yon church of the cloud-reaching spire,
                        Which gives to the sun his same look of red fire,
                        Where the arches and columns are gorgeous within,
                        And the walls seem as pure as a soul without sin; 20
                        Walk down the long aisles, see the rich and the great
                        In the pomp and the pride of their worldly estate;

Page 71


                        Walk down in your patches, and find, if you can,
                        Who opens a pew to a Moneyless Man.


                        Go, look in the Banks, where Mammon has told 25
                        His hundreds and thousands of silver and gold;
                        Where, safe from the hands of the starving and poor,
                        Lies pile upon pile of the glittering ore!
                        Walk up to their counters - ah, there you may stay
                        Till your limbs grow old, till your hairs grow gray,
                        And you'll find at the Banks not one of the clan 31
                        With money to lend to a Moneyless Man!


                        Go, look to yon Judge, in his dark-flowing gown,
                        With the scales wherein law weigheth equity down;
                        Where he frowns on the weak and smiles on the strong,
                        And punishes right whilst he justifies wrong; 36
                        Where juries their lips to the Bible have laid,
                        To render a verdict - they've already made;
                        Go there, in the court-room, and find if you can,
                        Any law for the cause of a Moneyless Man; 40


                        Then go to your hovel - no raven has fed
                        The wife who has suffered too long for her bread;
                        Kneel down by her pallet, and kiss the death-frost
                        From the lips of the angel your poverty lost;
                        Then turn in your agony upward to God, 45
                        And bless while it smites you the chastening rod,
                        And you'll find, at the end of your life's little span,
                        There's a welcome above for a Moneyless Man!

Page 72


SOMEBODY'S DARLING 1

MARIE LA COSTE


                        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 so brave: 5
                        Wearing still on his pale sweet face -
                        Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave -
                        The lingering light of his boyhood's grace.


                        Matted and damp are the curls of gold
                        Kissing the snow of that fair young brow; 10
                        Pale are the lips of delicate mold, -
                        Somebody's darling is dying now.
                        Back from the beautiful blue-veined brow
                        Brush every wandering silken thread,
                        Cross his hands on his bosom now, - 15
                        Somebody's darling is still and dead!


                        Kiss him once for somebody's sake;
                        Murmur a prayer, both soft and low;
                        One bright curl from its fair mates take -
                        They were somebody's pride, you know. 20
                        Somebody's hand has rested there;
                        Was it a mother's, soft and white?
                        Or have the lips of a sister fair
                        Been baptized in those waves of light?


                        God knows best! He was somebody's love; 25
                        Somebody's heart enshrined him there -


1. Written between the years 1861-65.
Page 73


                        Somebody wafted his name above,
                        Night and morn, on the wings of prayer.
                        Somebody wept when he marched away,
                        Looking so handsome, brave, and grand; 30
                        Somebody's kiss on his forehead lay,
                        Somebody clung to his parting hand.


                        Somebody's watching and waiting for him,
                        Yearning to hold him again to her heart;
                        And there he lies - with his blue eyes dim, 35
                        And the smiling, child-like lips apart.
                        Tenderly bury the fair young dead,
                        Pausing to drop on his grave a tear;
                        Carve on the wooden slab o'er his head,
                        "Somebody's darling slumbers here!" 40

BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER 1

SIDNEY LANIER


                        Into the woods my Master went,
                        Clean forspent, forspent,
                        Into the woods my Master came,
                        Forspent with love and shame.
                        But the olives they were not blind to Him, 5
                        The little gray leaves were kind to Him:
                        The thorn tree had a mind to Him
                        When into the woods He came.


                        Out of the woods my Master went,
                        And He was well content. 10
                        Out of the woods my Master came,


1. This poem and The Mockingbird are printed by courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers of Lanier's Poems.
Page 74


                        Content with death and shame.
                        When Death and Shame would woo Him last,
                        From under the trees they drew Him last:
                        'T was on a tree they slew Him last, 15
                        When out of the woods He came.

THE MOCKINGBIRD

SIDNEY LANIER


                        SUPERB and sole, upon a plumèd spray
                        That o'er the general leafage boldly grew,
                        He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew
                        The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay
                        Of languid doves when long their lovers stray, 5
                        And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew
                        At morn in brake or bosky avenue.
                        Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.
                        Then down he shot, bounced airily along
                        The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song 10
                        Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again.
                        Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain:
                        How may the death of that dull insect be
                        The life of yon trim Shakespeare on the tree?

Page 75


POE'S COTTAGE AT FORDHAM

JOHN HENRY BONER

        Edgar Allan Poe, with his wife, Virginia Clemm, and her mother, lived in a small cottage at Fordham, then outside of the city of New York, from the early summer of 1846 to 1847. Virginia Poe died there on January 30, 1847.


                        HERE lived the soul enchanted
                        By melody of song;
                        Here dwelt the spirit haunted
                        By a demoniac throng;
                        Here sang the lips elated; 5
                        Here grief and death were sated;
                        Here loved and here unmated
                        Was he, so frail, so strong.


                        Here wintry winds and cheerless
                        The dying firelight blew, 10
                        While he whose song was peerless
                        Dreamed the drear midnight through,
                        And from dull embers chilling
                        Crept shadows darkly filling
                        The silent place, and thrilling 15
                        His fancy as they grew.


                        Here, with brow bared to heaven,
                        In starry night he stood,
                        With the lost star of seven
                        Feeling sad brotherhood. 20
                        Here in the sobbing showers
                        Of dark autumnal hours
                        He heard suspected powers
                        Shriek through the stormy wood.

Page 76


                        From visions of Apollo 25
                        And of Astarte's bliss,
                        He gazed into the hollow
                        And hopeless vale of Dis;
                        And though earth were surrounded
                        By heaven, it still was mounded 30
                        With graves. His soul had sounded
                        The dolorous abyss.


                        Proud, mad, but not defiant,
                        He touched at heaven and hell.
                        Fate found a rare soul pliant 35
                        And rung her changes well.
                        Alternately his lyre,
                        Stranded with strings of fire,
                        Led earth's most happy choir
                        Or flashed with Israfel. 1 40


                        No singer of old story
                        Luting accustomed lays,
                        No harper for new glory,
                        No mendicant for praise,
                        He struck high chords and splendid, 45
                        Wherein were fiercely blended
                        Tones that unfinished ended
                        With his unfinished days.


                        Here through this lowly portal,
                        Made sacred by his name, 50
                        Unheralded immortal
                        The mortal went and came.


1. Poe prefixes to his poem Israfel a quotation from the Koran in which this angel is referred to as the spirit of song.
Page 77


                        And fate that then denied him,
                        And envy that decried him,
                        And malice that belied him, 55
                        Have cenotaphed his fame.

COUNSEL 1

MOLLIE E. MOORE DAVIS


                        IF thou should'st bid thy friend farewell,
                        But for one night though that farewell should be,
                        Press thou his hand in thine; how canst thou tell
                        How far from thee


                        Fate, or caprice, may lead his feet 5
                        Ere that to-morrow come? Men have been known
                        Lightly to turn the corner of a street,
                        And days have grown


                        To months, and months to lagging years,
                        Before they looked in loving eyes again. 10
                        Parting, at best, is underlaid with tears -
                        With tears and pain.


                        Therefore, lest sudden death should come between,
                        Or time, or distance, clasp with pleasure true
                        The palms of him who goeth forth. Unseen, 15
                        Fate goeth, too!


                        Yea, find thee always time to say
                        Some earnest word betwixt the idle talk,
                        Lest with thee henceforth, night and day,
                        Regret should walk. 20


1. Printed by courtesy of Mr. Thomas E. Davis.
Page 78


NECTAR AND AMBROSIA 1

MAURICE THOMPSON


                        IF I were a poet, my sweetest song
                        Should have the bouquet of scuppernong,
                        With a racy smack in every line
                        From the savage juice of the muscadine.


                        The russet persimmon, the brown papaw, 5
                        The red wild plum and the summer haw,
                        Serviceberries and mandrake fruit,
                        Sassafras bark and ginseng root,
                        Should make my verse pungent and sweet by turns;
                        And the odor of grass and the freshness of ferns, 10
                        The kernels of nuts and the resins of trees,
                        The nectar distilled by the wild honey-bees,
                        Should be thrown in together, to flavor my words
                        With the zest of the woods and the joy of the birds!


                        Who sings by note, from the page of a book, 15
                        So sweet a tune as the brawl of a brook?
                        Shall Homer, or shall Anacreon
                        Suggest as much as the wind or the sun?
                        Give me a shell from the sea so green,
                        Cut me a flute from the Aulocrene, 20
                        Give me Nature's sweets and sours,
                        Her barks and nuts, her fruits and flowers;
                        And all the music I make shall be
                        Good as the sap of the maple-tree,
                        Whilst a rare bouquet shall fill my song 25
                        From the muscadine and the scuppernong.


1. From Poems, copyright 1892, by Maurice Thompson, published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Page 79

THE BLUEBIRD 1

MAURICE THOMPSON


                        WHEN ice is thawed and snow is gone,
                        And racy sweetness floods the trees;
                        When snow-birds from the hedge have flown,
                        And on the hive-porch swarm the bees -
                        Drifting down the first warm wind 5
                        That thrills the earliest days of spring,
                        The bluebird seeks our maple groves,
                        And charms them into tasselling.


                        He sits among the delicate sprays,
                        With mists of splendor round him drawn, 10
                        And through the spring's prophetic veil
                        Sees summer's rich fulfillment dawn;
                        He sings, and his is nature's voice -
                        A gush of melody sincere
                        From that great fount of harmony 15
                        Which thaws and runs when spring is here.


                        Short is his song, but strangely sweet
                        To ears aweary of the low,
                        Dull tramp of Winter's sullen feet,
                        Sandalled in ice and muffed in snow: 20
                        Short is his song, but through it runs
                        A hint of dithyrambs yet to be -
                        A sweet suggestiveness that has
                        The influence of prophecy.


                        From childhood I have nursed a faith 25
                        In bluebird's songs and winds of spring;


1. From Poems, copyright 1892, by Maurice Thompson, published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Page 80


                        They tell me after frost and death
                        There comes a time of blossoming;
                        And after snow and cutting sleet,
                        The cold, stern mood of Nature yields 30
                        To tender warmth, when bare pink feet
                        Of children press her greening fields.


                        Sing strong and clear, O bluebird dear!
                        While all the land with splendour fills,
                        While maples gladden in the vales 35
                        And plum-trees blossom on the hills:
                        Float down the wind on shining wings,
                        And do thy will by grove and stream,
                        While through my life spring's freshness runs
                        Like music through a poet's dream. 40

REGRET 1

FRANCES CHRISTINE TIERNAN


                        IF I had known, O loyal heart,
                        When hand to hand, we said farewell,
                        How for all time our paths would part,
                        What shadow o'er our friendship fell,
                        I should have clasped your hand so close 5
                        In the warm pressure of my own,
                        That memory still would keep its grasp,
                        If I had known.


                        If I had known, when far and wide,
                        We loitered through the summer land, 10
                        What Presence wandered by our side,
                        And o'er you stretched its awful hand,


1. Written in memory of Julian Fairfax, M.A., University of Virginia, 1861. Printed by courtesy of the author.
Page 81


                        I should have hushed my careless speech,
                        To listen well to every tone
                        That from your lips fell low and sweet, 15
                        If I had known.


                        If I had known, when your kind eyes
                        Met mine in parting, true and sad -
                        Eyes gravely tender, gently wise,
                        And earnest rather more than glad - 20
                        How soon the lids would lie above,
                        As cold and white as sculptured stone,
                        I should have treasured every glance,
                        If I had known.


                        If I had known how from the strife 25
                        Of fears, hopes, passions here below,
                        Unto a purer, higher life,
                        That you were called, O friend, to go,
                        I should have stayed all foolish tears,
                        And hushed each idle sigh and moan, 30
                        To bid you a last, long God-speed,
                        If I had known.


                        If I had known to what strange place,
                        What mystic, distant, silent shore,
                        You calmly turned your steadfast face 35
                        What time your footsteps left my door,
                        I should have forged a golden link
                        To bind the heart so constant grown,
                        And kept it constant even there,
                        If I had known. 40


                        If I had known that until Death
                        Shall with his fingers touch my brow,

Page 82


                        And still the quickening of the breath
                        That stirs with life's full meaning now,
                        So long my feet must tread the way 45
                        Of our accustomed paths alone,
                        I should have prized your presence more,
                        If I had known.


                        If I had known how soon for you
                        Drew near the ending of the fight, 50
                        And on your vision, fair and new,
                        Eternal peace dawned into sight,
                        I should have begged, as love's last gift,
                        That you before God's great white throne
                        Would pray for your poor friend on earth, 55
                        If I had known.

INTIMATIONS 1

JOHN BANISTER TABB


                        I KNEW the flowers had dreamed of you,
                        And hailed the morning with regret;
                        For all their faces with the dew
                        Of vanished joy were wet.


                        I knew the winds had passed your way, 5
                        Though not a sound the truth betrayed;
                        About their pinions all the day
                        A summer fragrance stayed.


                        And so, awakening or asleep,
                        A memory of lost delight 10
                        By day the sightless breezes keep,
                        And silent flowers by night.


1. The three following poems by John B. Tabb are printed by courtesy of Small, Maynard and Company, Inc.


Page 83

KEATS

JOHN BANISTER TABB


                        UPON thy tomb 't is graven, "Here lies one
                        Whose name is writ in water." Could there be
                        A flight of Fancy fitlier feigned for thee,
                        A fairer motto for her favorite son?
                        Now crested proud in tidal majesty, 5
                        Now tranquil as the twilight reverie
                        Of some dim lake the white moon looks upon,
                        While teems the world with silence. Even there,
                        In each Protean rainbow-tint that stains
                        The breathing canvas of the atmosphere 10
                        We read an exhalation of thy strains:
                        Thus, on the scroll of Nature, everywhere,
                        Thy name, a deathless syllable, remains.

KILLDEE

JOHN BANISTER TABB


                        KILLDEE! KILLDEE! far o'er the lea
                        At twilight comes the cry.
                        Killdee! a marsh-mate answereth
                        Across the shallow sky.


                        Killdee! Killdee! thrills over me 5
                        A rhapsody of light,
                        As star to star gives utterance
                        Between the day and night.


                        Killdee! Killdee! O Memory,
                        The twin birds, Joy and Pain, 10
                        Like shadows parted by the sun,
                        At twilight meet again!

Page 84

A TRYSTING-PLACE 1

JOHN BANISTER TABB


                        As stars amid the darkness seen,
                        When flows the deepening dawn between
                        To cover them from sight,
                        O'erleap the spaces of the dark,
                        And, spark to quickening sister-spark, 5
                        Commingle in the light;


                        E'en so a solitary way
                        Do we, Beloved, day by day,
                        In weariness and pain,
                        Climb, desolate, from steep to steep, 10
                        Till, in the shadowy vale of Sleep,
                        Our spirits blend again.

THE WIND-STORM 2

MARGUERITE E. EASTER


                        ALL through the night the south wind blew. When first
                        I marked the tumult, 't was as if a crowd
                        From far away approached with voice that loud
                        And louder grew, and only paused to burst
                        Right at my gate, where for a while it nursed 5
                        Itself, reposing on the leaf-strewn sod
                        Complacently; till of a sudden, shod
                        With strength, it strode around and, manlike, cursed


1. From a manuscript in the possession of Dr. William Hand Browne, of Johns Hopkins University.
2. This poem and Maple Leaves are printed by permission of Arthur M. Easter.
Page 85


                        That which it hurt. The maples turned one way
                        Their white-faced leaves and looked about to flee 10
                        Before its rage; the bushes all got gray
                        And grisly, as they crept on hand and knee;
                        And the whipped clouds, of tears and speech bereft,
                        Sullen and aimless, fled to right and left.

MAPLE LEAVES

MARGUERITE E. EASTER


                        ON smooth-skinned, sappy boughs of darker brown
                        The woolly wads of buds are folded down,
                        Each swaddled in a rumpled, fuzzy gown.


                        The chilling breezes cannot get to them,
                        Thus closely cuddled to the mother stem, 5
                        Their feet wrapped in their red frock's ruffled hem.


                        Betimes their yellow tendrils looser curl,
                        Betimes their fan-shaped follicles unfurl;
                        They're growing stealthily, as grows a girl.


                        Waked by the bluebird's chirp, some balmy day, 10
                        They'll burst the sheaths that bind them and display
                        Themselves, green-kirtled, to the eyes of May.

Page 86


THE GRAPEVINE SWING 1

SAMUEL MINTURN PECK


                        WHEN I was a boy on the old plantation,
                        Down by the deep bayou,
                        The fairest spot of all creation,
                        Under the arching blue;
                        When the wind came over the cotton and corn, 5
                        To the long slim loop I 'd spring
                        With brown feet bare, and a hat brim torn,
                        And swing in the grapevine swing.


                        Swinging in the grapevine swing,
                        Laughing where the wild birds sing, 10
                        I dream and sigh
                        For the days gone by,
                        Swinging in the grapevine swing!


                        Out - o'er the water-lilies bonnie and bright,
                        Back - to the moss-grown tree; 15
                        I shouted and laughed with a heart as light
                        As a wild rose tossed by the breeze.
                        The mocking-bird joined in my reckless glee,
                        I longed for no angel's wing -
                        I was just as near heaven as I wanted to be 20
                        Swinging in the grapevine swing.


                        Swinging in the grapevine swing,
                        Laughing where the wild birds sing,
                        O to be a boy
                        With a heart full of joy, 25
                        Swinging in the grapevine swing!


1. From Rings and Love Knots, copyright, 1892, by Frederick A. Stokes Company.
Page 87


                        I'm weary at noon, I'm weary at night,
                        I'm fretted and sore at heart,
                        And care is sowing my locks with white
                        As I wend through the fevered mart. 30
                        I'm tired of the world, with its pride and pomp,
                        And fame seems a worthless thing.
                        I'd barter it all for one day's romp,
                        And a swing in the grapevine swing.


                        Swinging in the grapevine swing, 35
                        Laughing where the wild birds sing,
                        I would I were away
                        From the world to-day,
                        Swinging in the grapevine swing!

VERNAL PROPHECIES 1

WILLIAM HAMILTON HAYNE


                        TO-DAY the wind has a milder range,
                        And seems to hint of a secret change;
                        For the gossipy breezes bring to me
                        The delicate odor of buds to be
                        In the gardens and groves of Spring. 5


                        Those forces of nature we cannot see -
                        The procreant power in plant and tree,
                        Shall bring at last to the waiting thorn
                        The wealth of the roses yet unborn
                        In the gardens and groves of Spring. 10


                        The early grass in a sheltered nook
                        Unsheathes its blades near the forest brook;


1. This poem and A Sea Lyric are printed by courtesy of the author.
Page 88


                        In the first faint green of the elm I see
                        A gracious token of leaves to be
                        In the gardens and groves of Spring. 15


                        The peach-trees brighten the river's brink,
                        With their dainty blossoms of white and pink,
                        And over the orchard there comes to me
                        The subtle fragrance of fruit to be
                        In the gardens and groves of Spring. 20


                        The rigor of winter has passed away,
                        While the earth seems yearning to meet her May,
                        And the voice of a bird in melodious glee
                        Foretells the sweetness of songs to be
                        In the gardens and groves of Spring. 25

A SEA LYRIC

WILLIAM HAMILTON HAYNE


                        THERE is no music that man has heard
                        Like the voice of the minstrel Sea,
                        Whose major and minor chords are fraught
                        With infinite mystery;
                        For the Sea is a harp, and the winds of God 5
                        Play over his rhythmic breast,
                        And bear on the sweep of their mighty wings
                        The song of a vast unrest.


                        There is no passion that man has sung,
                        Like the love of the deep-souled Sea, 10
                        Whose tide responds to the Moon's soft light
                        With marvelous melody;

Page 89


                        For the Sea is a harp, and the winds of God
                        Play over his rhythmic breast,
                        And bear on the sweep of their mighty wings 15
                        The song of a vast unrest.


                        There is no sorrow that man has known,
                        Like the grief of the worldless Main,
                        Whose Titan bosom forever throbs
                        With an untranslated pain; 20
                        For the Sea is a harp, and the winds of God
                        Play over his rhythmic breast,
                        And bear on the sweep of their mighty wings
                        The song of a vast unrest.

TO MY COMRADE TREE 1

DANSKE DANDRIDGE

        "The tree is grown that shall yield to each . . . his 'last narrow house and dark.' " - County Parson.


                        REMOTE in the woods where the thrushes chant;
                        Or on some lonely mountain slope;
                        Or in a copse, the cuckoo's haunt -
                        With fingers pointing to the cope,
                        There stands a tree, there stands a tree, 5
                        Must fall before they bury me.


                        O waiting heart, where'er thou art,
                        At last thy dust with mine shall blend;
                        For though we spend our days apart,
                        We come together at the end; 10
                        And thou with me, and I with thee,
                        Must lie in perfect unity.


1. Printed by courtesy of the author.
Page 90


                        Within a cramped confine of space,
                        And owning naught of earth beside,
                        That heart must be my dwelling-place 15
                        For whom the world was not too wide.
                        A new-time Dryad, mine must be
                        The shape that shall inhabit thee.


                        Perchance in some lone wandering
                        On thine old roots I may have lain, 20
                        And heard above the wood-birds sing,
                        While God looked down upon us twain;
                        And did I feel no thrill, with thee,
                        Of fellowship and sympathy?


                        Is thy strong heart ne'er wearied out, 25
                        With standing 'neath the overfreight
                        Of boughs that compass thee about,
                        With mass of green, or white, a-weight?
                        O patient tree, O patient tree!
                        Dost never long for rest, like me? 30


                        I know thou spreadest grateful shade
                        When fierce the noontide sun cloth beat;
                        And birds their nests in thee have made,
                        And cattle rested at thy feet:
                        Heaven grant I make this life of mine 35
                        As beautiful and brave as thine!


                        And when thy circling cloak is doffed,
                        Thou standest on the storm-swept sod
                        And liftest thy long arms aloft
                        In mute appealing to thy God: 40
                        Appeal for me, appeal for me,
                        That I may stand as steadfastly.

Page 91


                        Let me fulfil my destiny
                        And calmly wait for thee, O friend!
                        For thou must fall, and I must die, 45
                        And come together at the end -
                        To quiet slumbering addressed;
                        Shut off from storm; shut in for rest.


                        Thus lying in God's mighty hand
                        While his great purposes unfold, 50
                        We'll feel, as was from Chaos planned,
                        His breath inform our formless mould;
                        New shape for thee, new life for me,
                        For both, a vast eternity.


THE WHIPPOORWILL 1

MADISON CAWEIN

        This bird is familiar to all Southerners and is generally associated with sadness and with negro superstitions.


                        ABOVE long woodland ways that led
                        To dells the stealthy twilights tread
                        The west was hot geranium-red;
                        And still, and still,
                        Along old lanes, the locusts sow 5
                        With clustered curls the May times know,
                        Out of the crimson afterglow,
                        We heard the homeward cattle low,
                        And then the far-off, far-off woe
                        Of "whippoorwill!" of "whippoorwill!" 10


                        Beneath the idle beechen boughs
                        We heard the cow-bells of the cows


1. This poem and Evening on the Farm are printed by courtesy of the author.
Page 92


                        Come slowly jangling toward the house;
                        And still, and still,
                        Beyond the light that would not die 15
                        Out of the scarlet-haunted sky,
                        Beyond the evening star's white eye
                        Of glittering chalcedony,
                        Drained out of dusk the plaintive cry
                        Of "whippoorwill!" of "whippoorwill!" 20


                        What is there in the moon, that swims
                        A naked bosom o'er the limbs,
                        That all the wood with magic dims?
                        While still, while still,
                        Among the trees whose shadows grope 25
                        'Mid ferns and flow'rs the dewdrops ope -
                        Lost in faint deeps of heliotrope
                        Above the clover-scented slope -
                        Retreats, despairing past all hope,
                        The whippoorwill, the whippoorwill. 30

EVENING ON THE FARM

MADISON CAWEIN


                        FROM out the hills where twilight stands,
                        Above the shadowy pasture-lands,
                        With strained and strident cry,
                        Beneath pale skies that sunset bands,
                        The bull-bats fly. 5


                        A cloud hangs over, strange of shape,
                        And, colored like the half-ripe grape,
                        Seems some uneven stain
                        On heaven's azure, thin as crepe,
                        And blue as rain. 10

Page 93


                        By-ways, that sunset's sardonyx
                        O'erflares, and gates the farm-boy clicks,
                        Through which the cattle came,
                        The mullein's stalks seem giant wicks
                        Of downy flame. 15


                        From woods no glimmer enters in,
                        Above the streams that, wandering, win
                        From out the violet hills,
                        Those haunters of the dusk begin,
                        The whippoorwills. 20


                        Adown the dark the firefly marks
                        Its flight in golden-emerald sparks;
                        And, loosened from its chain,
                        The shaggy watch-dog bounds and barks,
                        And barks again. 25


                        Each breeze brings scents of hill-heaped hay;
                        And now an owlet, far away,
                        Cries twice or thrice, "T-o-o-w-h-o-o-";
                        And cool dim moths of mottled gray
                        Flit through the dew. 30


                        The silence sounds its frog-bassoon,
                        Where, on the woodland creek's lagoon,
                        Pale as a ghostly girl
                        Lost 'mid the trees, looks down the moon,
                        With face of pearl. 35


                        Within the shed where logs, late hewed,
                        Smell forest-sweet, and chips of wood
                        Make blurs of white and brown,
                        The brood-hen huddles her warm brood
                        Of teetering down. 40

Page 94


                        The clattering guineas in the tree
                        Din for a time; and quietly
                        The hen-house, near the fence,
                        Sleeps, save for some brief rivalry
                        Of cocks and hens. 45


                        A cow-bell tinkles by the rails,
                        Where, streaming white in foaming pails,
                        Milk makes an uddery sound;
                        While overhead the black bat trails
                        Around and round. 50


                        The night is still. The slow cows chew
                        A drowsy cud. The bird that flew
                        And sang is in its nest.
                        It is the time of falling dew,
                        Of dreams and rest. 55


                        The brown bees sleep; and round the walk,
                        The garden path, from stalk to stalk
                        The bungling beetle booms,
                        Where two soft shadows stand and talk
                        Among the blooms. 60


                        The stars are thick; the light is dead
                        That dyed the west; and Drowsyhead,
                        Tuning his cricket-pipe,
                        Nods, and some apple, round and red,
                        Drops over-ripe. 65


                        Now down the road, that shambles by,
                        A window, shining like an eye
                        Through climbing rose and gourd,
                        Shows where Toil sups and these things lie -
                        His heart and hoard. 70

Page 95


OPPORTUNITY 1

WALTER MALONE


                        THEY do me wrong who say I come no more
                        When once I knock and fail to find you in;
                        For every day I stand outside your door,
                        And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win.


                        Wail not for precious chances passed away, 5
                        Weep not for golden ages on the wane!
                        Each night I burn the records of the day -
                        At sunrise every soul is born again!


                        Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped,
                        To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; 10
                        My judgments seal the dead past with its dead,
                        But never bind a moment yet to come.


                        Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep;
                        I lend my arm to all who say "I can!"
                        No shame-faced outcast ever sank so deep, 15
                        But yet might rise and be again a man!


                        Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast?
                        Dost reel from righteous Retribution's blow?
                        Then turn from blotted archives of the past,
                        And find the future's pages white as snow. 20


                        Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell;
                        Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven;
                        Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,
                        Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.


1. This poem was written before that one by the late Senator J. J. Ingalls, to which otherwise it would seem a reply. Printed by courtesy of the author, as also is Florida Nocturne.


Page 96

FLORIDA NOCTURNE

WALTER MALONE


                        THROUGH midnight shadows purple-brown,
                        The stars are peeping open-eyed;
                        There in her glowing, silvery gown
                        The moon comes like a radiant bride.
                        Now sweet and clear 5
                        From citron coppice near,
                        I hear a mocking-bird repine.
                        In gurgle, gurgle, gurgle of his melodies divine.


                        From lemon orchards, starred with blooms,
                        And bending low with fragrant fruit, 10
                        Soft odors haunt the purple glooms
                        Like whispers of a lover's lute.
                        I wait alone
                        For you, for you, my own,
                        With love more spirit-like and sweet 15
                        Than all the fragile blossoms that I scatter at your feet.


                        Through green pomegranate trees
                        I see the swelling globes of gold;
                        Through jasmine vines I feel the breeze
                        Trip like a cherub, silken-stoled; 20
                        Magnolias loom
                        With creamy clouds of bloom;
                        With pining they are pale, my dear,
                        But not more pale with pining than the one who waits you here.


                        The orange fruit swings on the trees, 25
                        The sprays of orange scent the air;

Page 97


                        Gold apples of Hesperides,
                        I bring their blooms to wreathe your hair!
                        Hark to the trill
                        Of yon lone whip-poor-will, 30
                        Reminding by his mournful tune
                        That Youth and Love and Joy must pass, so soon, so soon, so soon!


                        The orange odors soon must faint,
                        The lemon blossoms soon must die,
                        The mocking-bird must end his plaint, 35
                        Magnolias, fading, flutter by.
                        Then come, sweet mate,
                        Before it be too late!
                        While Youth is blissful, Love divine,
                        O maiden of the flower-like face, be mine, be mine, be mine! 40

THE VULTURE AND HIS SHADOW 1

HARRY STILLWELL EDWARDS


                        ALL the day long we roam, we roam,
                        My shadow fleet and I;
                        One searches all the land and sea,
                        And one the trackless sky;
                        But when the taint of death ascends 5
                        My airy flight to greet,
                        As friends around the festal board,
                        We meet! we meet! we meet!


                        Ah! none can read the sign we read,
                        No eye can fathom the gales, 10


1. Printed by courtesy of the author.
Page 98


                        No tongue can whisper our secret deed,
                        For dead men tell no tales.
                        The spot on the plains is miles away;
                        But our wings are broad and fleet -
                        The wave-tossed speck in the eye of day 15
                        Is far - but we meet! we meet!


                        The voice of the battle is haste, oh, haste!
                        And down the wind we speed;
                        The voice of the wreck moans up from the deep,
                        And we search the rank sea weed. 20
                        The maiden listens the livelong day
                        For the fall of her lover's feet;
                        She wonders to see us speeding by -
                        She would die, if she saw us meet!

L'ENVOI


                        Sweeping in circles, my shadow and I, 25
                        Leaving no mark on the land or sky,
                        When the double circles are all complete,
                        At the bedside of death we meet! we meet!

DREAMING IN THE TRENCHES 1

WILLIAM GORDON McCABE


                        I PICTURE her there in the quaint old room,
                        Where the fading fire-light starts and falls,
                        Alone in the twilight's tender gloom,
                        With the shadows that dance on the dim-lit walls


                        Alone, while those faces look silently down 5
                        From their antique frames in a grim repose -



1. Petersburg Trenches, 1864. Printed by courtesy of the author.
Page 99


                        Slight scholarly Ralph in his Oxford gown,
                        And stanch Sir Alan, who died for Montrose. 1


                        There are gallants gay in crimson and gold,
                        There are smiling beauties with powdered hair, 10
                        But she sits there, fairer a thousand-fold,
                        Leaning dreamily back in her low arm-chair.


                        And the roseate shadows of fading light
                        Softly clear, steal over the sweet young face,
                        Where a woman's tenderness blends to-night 15
                        With the guileless pride of a knightly race.


                        Her small hands lie clasped in a listless way
                        On the old Romance - which she holds on her knee -
                        Of Tristram, the bravest of knights in the fray,
                        And Iseult, who waits by the sounding sea. 20


                        And her proud, dark eyes wear a softened look
                        As she watches the dying embers fall;
                        Perhaps she dreams of the knight in the book,
                        Perhaps of the pictures that smile on the wall.


                        What fancies I wonder are thronging her brain, 25
                        For her cheeks flush warm with a crimson glow!
                        Perhaps - ah! me, how foolish and vain!
                        But I'd give my life to believe it so!


                        Well, whether I ever march home again
                        To offer my love and a stainless name, 30
                        Or whether I die at the head of my men -
                        I'll be true to the end all the same.


1. James Graham, Marquis of Montrose (1612-50), the poet, and great soldier and supporter of Charles I.
Page 100


THE LAND WHERE WE WERE DREAMING 1

DANIEL BEDINGER LUCAS


                        FAIR were our nation's visions, and as grand
                        As ever floated out of fancy-land;
                        Children were we in simple faith,
                        But god-like children, whom nor death,
                        Nor threat of danger drove from honor's path - 5
                        In the land where we were dreaming!


                        Proud were our men as pride of birth could render,
                        As violets our women pure and tender;
                        And when they spoke, their voices' thrill
                        At evening hushed the whip-poor-will; 10
                        At morn the mocking bird was mute and still,
                        In the land where we were dreaming!


                        And we had graves that covered more of glory,
                        Than ever taxed the lips of ancient story;
                        And in our dream we wove the thread 15
                        Of principles for which had bled,
                        And suffered long our own immortal dead,
                        In the land where we were dreaming!


                        Tho' in our land we had both bond and free,
                        Both were content, and so God let them be; 20
                        Till Northern glances, slanting down,
                        With envy viewed our harvest sun -
                        But little recked we, for we still slept on,
                        In the land where we were dreaming!


1. Written in Canada, where he had gone to defend his friend John Yates Beall, attainted of treason, after General Lee's surrender. This poem was first published in the Montreal Gazette. Printed by courtesy of Miss Virginia Lucas.
Page 101


                        Our sleep grew troubled, and our dreams grew wild; 25
                        Red meteors flashed across our heaven's field;
                        Crimson the Moon; between the Twins
                        Barbed arrows flew in circling lanes
                        Of light; red Comets tossed their fiery manes
                        O'er the land where we were dreaming! 30


                        Down from her eagle height smiled Liberty,
                        And waved her hand in sign of victory;
                        The world approved, and everywhere,
                        Except where growled the Russian bear,
                        The brave, the good and just gave us their prayer, 35
                        For the land where we were dreaming!


                        High o'er our heads a starry flag was seen,
                        Whose field was blanched, and spotless in its sheen;
                        Chivalry's cross its union bears,
                        And by his scars each vet'ran swears 40
                        To bear it on in triumph through the wars,
                        In the land where we were dreaming!


                        We fondly thought a Government was ours -
                        We challenged place among the world's great powers;
                        We talk'd in sleep of rank, commission, 45
                        Until so life-like grew the vision,
                        That he who dared to doubt but met derision,
                        In the land where we were dreaming!


                        A figure came among us as we slept -
                        At first he knelt, then slowly rose and wept; 50
                        Then gathering up a thousand spears,
                        He swept across the field of Mars,
                        Then bowed farewell, and walked behind the stars,
                        From the land where we were dreaming!

Page 102


                        We looked again, another figure still 55
                        Gave hope, and nerved each individual will;
                        Erect he stood, as clothed with power;
                        Self-poised, he seemed to rule the hour,
                        With firm, majestic sway - of strength a tower,
                        In the land where we were dreaming! 60


                        As while great Jove, in bronze, a warder god,
                        Gazed eastward from the Forum where he stood,
                        Rome felt herself secure and free -
                        So Richmond, we, on guard for thee,
                        Beheld a bronzèd hero, god-like Lee, 65
                        In the land where we were dreaming!


                        As wakes the soldier when the alarum calls -
                        As wakes the mother when her infant falls -
                        As starts the traveler when around
                        His sleepy couch the fire-bells sound - 70
                        So woke our nation with a single bound -
                        In the land where we were dreaming!


                        Woe! woe! is us, the startled mothers cried,
                        While we have slept, our noble sons have died!
                        Woe! woe! is us, how strange and sad, 75
                        That all our glorious visions fled,
                        Have left us nothing real but our dead,
                        In the land where we were dreaming!


                        And are they really dead, our martyred slain?
                        No, Dreamers! Morn shall bid them rise again; 80
                        From every plain - from every height -
                        On which they seemed to die for right,
                        Their gallant spirits shall renew the fight,
                        In the land where we were dreaming!

Page 103


                        Unconquered still in soul, tho' now o'er-run, 85
                        In peace, in war, the battle's just begun!
                        Once this Thyestean banquet o'er,
                        Grown strong the few who bide the hour,
                        Shall rise and hurl its drunken guests from power,
                        In the land where we were dreaming! 90

THE MAGNOLIA 1

MARY McNEIL FENOLLOSA


                        O FLOWERS of the garden, of skilled and human care,
                        Sweet heliotrope, and violet, and orchid frail and fair,
                        Pour out your love to happier hearts; the woodland flowers for me,
                        The pallid, creamy blossoms of the dark magnolia tree!


                        I close my eyes; my soul lifts up to float with their perfume, 5
                        And dull the body lying in this narrow city room.
                        Again I am a happy child. I leap and joy to see
                        The great curved petals wavering slip from out the gleaming tree.


                        As holy grail, or pearl inwrought, or carven ivory cup,
                        They stand on bronze and emerald bough, and brim their sweetness up; 10
                        And underneath a happy child! - O days that used to be!
                        In distant land, the flowers still stand upon the dark green tree.


1. From Out of The Nest, by Mary McNeil Fenollosa, copyright, 1899, by Little, Brown and Company.

Page 105


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES


Page 111


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