XII.
'Tis done! the gory field is ours; we've conquered in the fight!
And yet once more our tongues can tell the triumph of the right;
And humbled is the haughty foe, who our destruction sought,
For God's right hand and holy arm have great deliverance wrought.
Oh, then, unto His holy name ring out the joyful song--
The race has not been to the swift, the battle to the strong.
[1] Pronounced Eujee
The Guerillas: A Southern War-Song.
By S. Teackle Wallis, of Maryland.
"Awake! and to horse, my brothers!
For the dawn is glimmering gray;
And hark! in the crackling brushwood
There are feet that tread this way.
"Who cometh?" "A friend." "What tidings?"
"O God! I sicken to tell,
For the earth seems earth no longer,
And its sights are sights of hell!
"There's rapine and fire and slaughter,
From the mountain down to the shore;
There's blood on the trampled harvest--
There's blood on the homestead floor.
"From the far-off conquered cities
Comes the voice of a stifled wail;
And the shrieks and moans of the houseless
Ring out, like a dirge, on the gale.
"I've seen, from the smoking village
Our mothers and daughters fly;
I've seen where the little children
Sank down, in the furrows, to die.
"On the banks of the battle-stained river
I stood, as the moonlight shone,
And it glared on the face of my brother,
As the sad wave swept him on.
"Where my home was glad, are ashes,
And horror and shame had been there--
For I found, on the fallen lintel,
This tress of my wife's torn hair.
"They are turning the slave upon us,
And, with more than the fiend's worst art,
Have uncovered the fires of the savage
That slept in his untaught heart.
"The ties to our hearths that bound him,
They have rent, with curses, away,
And maddened him, with their madness,
To be almost as brutal as they.
"With halter and torch and Bible,
And hymns to the sound of the drum,
They preach the gospel of Murder,
And pray for Lust's kingdom to come.
"To saddle! to saddle! my brothers!
Look up to the rising sun,
And ask of the God who shines there,
Whether deeds like these shall be done!
"Wherever the vandal cometh,
Press home to his heart with your steel,
And when at his bosom you cannot,
Like the serpent, go strike at his heel!
"Through thicket and wood go hunt him,
Creep up to his camp fireside,
And let ten of his corpses blacken
Where one of our brothers hath died.
"In his fainting, foot-sore marches,
In his flight from the stricken fray,
In the snare of the lonely ambush,
The debts that we owe him pay,
"In God's hand, alone, is judgment;
But He strikes with the hands of men,
And His blight would wither our manhood
If we smote not the smiter again.
"By the graves where our fathers slumber,
By the shrines where our mothers prayed,
By our homes and hopes and freedom.
Let every man swear on his blade.--
"That he will not sheath nor stay it,
Till from point to heft it glow
With the flush of Almighty vengeance,
In the blood of the felon foe."
They swore--and the answering sunlight
Leapt red from their lifted swords,
And the hate in their hearts made echo
To the wrath in their burning words.
There's weeping in all New England,
And by Schuylkill's banks a knell,
And the widows there, and the orphans,
How the oath was kept can tell.
A Farewell to Pope.
By John K. Thompson, of Virginia.
"Hats off" in the crowd, "Present arms" in the line!
Let the standards all bow, and the sabres incline--
Roll, drums, the Rogue's March, while the conqueror goes,
Whose eyes have seen only "the backs of his foes"--
Through a thicket of laurel, a whirlwind of cheers,
His vanishing form from our gaze disappears;
Henceforth with the savage Dacotahs to cope,
Abiit, evasit, erupit--John Pope.
He came out of the West, like the young Lochinvor,
Compeller of fate and controller of war,
Videre et vincere, simply to see,
And straightway to conquer Hill, Jackson and Lee,
And old Abe at the White House, like Kilmansegg pére,
With a monkeyish grin and beatified air,
"Seemed washing his hands with invisible soap,"
As with eager attention he listened to Pope.
He came--and the poultry was swept by his sword,
Spoons, liquors, and furniture went by the board;
He saw--at a distance, the rebels appear,
And "rode to the front," which was strangely the rear;
He conquered--truth, decency, honor full soon,
Pest, pilferer, puppy, pretender, poltroon;
And was fain from the scene of his triumphs to slope.
Sure there never was fortunate hero like Pope.
He has left us his shining example to note,
And Stuart has captured his uniform coat;
But 'tis puzzling enough, as his deeds we recall,
To tell on whose shoulders his mantle should fall;
While many may claim to deserve it, at least,
From Hunter, the Hound, down to Butler, the Beast,
None else, we can say, without risking the trope,
But himself can be parallel ever to Pope.
Like his namesake the poet of genius and fire,
He gives new expression and force to the lyre;
But in one little matter they differ, the two,
And differ, indeed, very widely, 'tis true--
While his verses gave great Alexaader his fame,
'Tis our hero's reverses accomplish the same;
And fate may decree that the end of a rope
Shall award yet his highest position to Pope.