“Hear me! We came in honored war.
The risen world was on your track!
The whole North-land was at our back,
From Hudson’s bank to the North star!
“And from the North to palm-set sea
The splendid fiery cyclone swept.
Your fathers fell, your mothers wept,
Their nude babes clinging to the knee.
“A wide and desolated track:
Behind, a path of ruin lay;
Before, some women by the way
Stood mutely gazing, clad in black.
“From silent women waiting there
Some tears came down like still small rain;
Their own sons on the battle plain
Were now but viewless ghosts of air.
“Their own dear daring boys in gray,—
They should not see them any more;
Our cruel drums kept telling o’er
The time their own sons went away.
“Through burning town, by bursting shell—
Yea, I remember well that night;
I led through orange-lanes of light,
As through some hot outpost of hell!
[“]That night of rainbow-shot and shell
Sent from your surging river’s breast
To waken me, no more to rest,—
That night I should remember well!
[“]That night amid the maimed and dead,—
A night in history set down
By light of many a burning town,
And written all across in red,—
“Her father dead, her brothers dead,
Her home in flames,—what else could she
But fly all helpless here to me,
A fluttered dove, that night of dread?
“Short time, hot time had I to woo
Amid the red shells’ battle-chime;
But women rarely reckon time,
And perils speed their love when true.