[Footnote 1: See sketch of Cooke, page 19. In the preface to the volume from which this poem is taken, the author tells us that Florence Vane and Rosalie Lee, another brief lyric, had "met with more favor than I could ever perceive their just claim to." Hence he was kept from "venturing upon the correction of some faults." Rosalie Lee is more than usually defective in meter and rhyme, but Florence Vane cannot easily be improved.]
[Footnote 2: "My meaning, I suppose," the poet wrote an inquiring friend, "was that Florence did not want the capacity to love, but directed her love to no object. Her passions went flowing like a lost river. Byron has a kindred idea expressed by the same figure. Perhaps his verses were in my mind when I wrote my own:—
'She was the ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all.'—The Dream.
But no verse ought to require to be interpreted, and if I were composing
Florence Vane now, I would avoid the over concentrated expression in the
two lines, and make the idea clearer."—Southern Literary
Messenger, 1850, p. 370.]
* * * * *
SELECTION FROM THEODORE O'HARA
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD [1]
The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo:
No more op Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame's eternal camping-ground
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;
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
At dawn shall call to arms.
Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed;
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle gashed,
Are free from anguish now.