Soldiers of the light

by Helen Gray Cone

Writing the final terms of the longed-for surrender of Vicksburg.)

Stars swept on, meanwhile, in their still, predestinate pathways;

Mornward wheeled the world; and Time, inexhaustible Mother,

Bore to us once again the Day of the birth of a Nation

Sprung from the life-blood of heroes, and consecrated to Freedom.

Guns of the Gettysburg heights, we hear you as out of the distance:

Shall we not understand? Ye spake, in your awful contending,

Words ye spake through the cloud, with austere oracular voices,

Mighty reverberant watchwords of Titan-forces in conflict:

Crying, “The sundered stars!” and replying “The heavens in their clusters,