Two clouds, gold and purple, at sunrise contending;
Two chords of rare music, contrasting and blending,
Through the carnival flying like sunshine and shadow,
Pursuing each other o’er mountain and meadow,
Swept our blonde and brunette, all radiant with joy—
Cleopatra of Egypt, and Helen of Troy.
The blonde is a dew-spangled morning in June
When birds, breeze and bees with the sun are in tune;
Her lips and the rose scent the crystalline air
And the sunshine is lost in the gold of her hair.
The brunette is a ray of the mystical light
Which falls from the moon on a midsummer night,
And visions celestial of Loveland arise,
From the luminous depths of her violet eyes;
And each rapturous gleam of her presence gives birth
To the joys which fair Venus brought down to the earth.
GRAY AND BLUE.
Dedicated to Col. R. W. Brown, of the Louisville Times.
The rage and the chaos of battle,
The carnage and anguish are o’er,
The wrath and the rout of Manassas,
The death-knell of Gettysburg’s roar;
And softly, round Nashville and Richmond,
Descends, like Christ’s mercy, the dew
Where sleep, till the angel of Judgment
Shall wake them, the Gray and the Blue.
From the gray of the balm-breathing morning
The mists of the night flee away
Till the sun, in his orient splendor,
Paints the vault with the clear blue of day;
As those colors in Heaven commingle,
O, hearts that are faithful and true!
Blend now in affection together
By your love of the Gray and the Blue.
Earth wondered when fought the gray legions
Round Johnston and Cleburne and Lee,
When the Blue followed Grant, Meade, and Thomas
And Sherman marched down to the sea;
And Stuart’s and Sheridan’s horsemen
In scorn smote the war-dragon’s mouth,
A stone wall of granite the Northland,
A stone wall of marble the South.
Strew roses, the sweetest of Summer,
For brave and magnanimous Lee,
For Lincoln, the merciful victor,
For the slain on the land and the sea,
And the States in communion forever
Like eagles their strength shall renew,
And the Star of our Union shine brighter
In the concord of Gray and of Blue.