Dark falls the night—all pitiless the rainy tempests blow—
Earth yields no shelter, and above no friendly beacons glow;
A crown of thorns is piercing through my aching, throbbing brow,
And iron griefs my pallid cheeks with deep run furrows plow.
But oh, thou Holy One, whose feet once pressed this earthly sod;
Balm of the bruised and bleeding heart, oh, sinless Lamb of God,
To thee on bended knees, with tears of bitterness, I pray,
For thou canst heal my stricken heart and guide me on the way.
BATTLE OF NASHVILLE
December 15-16, 1864.
[Written as a Carriers’ Address for the Nashville Daily Press and Times, December 25, 1864.]
The Preparation.
All day, while gazing from yon lofty tower,
We saw, far gleaming through the mist and smoke,
The camps, like fleets upon a circling sea,
Or snowdrifts sleeping on the frozen hills,
Dumb batteries, like bloodhounds in the leash,
Yet terrible in silence, the blue tide
Of cavalry, the battle’s foremost wave;
The gunboats on the left; upon the right
Fort Gillem’s bannered staff, and to the south
Fort Negley’s bastions belting St. Cloud’s hill,
And Morton and Casino by its side.
How soon their guns will belch their sulphurous breath
Upon the crimson carnival of Death!
The Night Scene.
But when the darkness swallowed up the day,
As if we entered the Elysian fields,
Through the encircling clouds of awful night,
We saw a glowing Paradise of light.
A thousand camp-fires blossomed on the hills,
The flame-leaved lilies of the Field of Mars,
Minerva’s bloody roses, passion-flowers,
Planted by sooty Vulcan, whose red disc
Thrive best in crimson showers, and gather strength,
Fanned by the moans and sighs of dying men,
Each tented hill and pyramid of fire
Flashed round the dark horizon, till it seemed
A billowed sea of many-twinkling lights,
Or burning girdle of Vesuvian crests
Whose surging lava trembled to o’erleap
Their glowing craters and engulf the plains.
Alas, for many a harnessed warrior when
Yon Battle-Titan turns him in his den!