No unresponsive soul had heard
That plaintive note's appealing,
So deeply "Home, Sweet Home" had stirred
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.
Or cold or warm, his native skies
Bend in their beauty o'er him;
Seen through the tear-mist in his eyes,
His loved ones stand before him.
As fades the iris after rain
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,
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,
Gave this one touch of Nature.
[Footnote 90: Received a liberal education and relinquishing his profession—the law—for literature, was for some years editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. Has written chiefly for the magazines and for the newspapers. A native of Virginia.]
* * * * *
=George Henry Boker, 1824-.= (Manual, p. 520.)
From the "Ode to a Mountain Oak."