“Round and mighty-based it towered—up into the infinite— And I knew no mortal mason could have built a shaft so bright; For it shone like solid sunshine; and a winding stair of light, Wound around it and around it till it wound clear out of sight!
“And, behold, as I approached it—with a rapt and dazzled stare,— Thinking that I saw old comrades just ascending the great stair— Suddenly the solemn challenge broke of,—‘Halt! and who goes there?’ ‘I’m a friend,’ I said, ‘if you are.’—‘Then advance, sir, to the stair!’
“I advanced!—that sentry, Doctor, was Elijah Ballantyne!— First of all to fall on Monday, after we had formed the line: ‘Welcome, my old Sergeant, welcome! welcome by that countersign!’ And he pointed to the scar there, under this old cloak of mine!
“As he grasped my hand, I shuddered, thinking only of the grave; But he smiled and pointed upward, with a bright and bloodless glaive; ‘That’s the way, sir, to head-quarters.’—‘What head-quarters?’—‘Of the brave.’ ‘But the great tower?’—‘That was builded of the great deeds of the brave.’
“Then a sudden shame came o’er me at his uniform of light; At my own so old and tattered, and at his so new and bright; ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘you have forgotten the new uniform to-night,— Hurry back, for you must be here at just twelve o’clock to-night!’
“And the next thing I remember, you were sitting there, and I— Doctor—did you hear a footstep? Hark!—God bless you all! Good-bye! Doctor, please to give my musket and my knapsack when I die, To my son—my son that’s coming,—he won’t get here till I die!
“Tell him his old father blessed him as he never did before,— And to carry that old musket”—Hark! a knock is at the door!— “Till the Union”—See! it opens!—“Father! Father! Speak once more!” “Bless you!”—gasped the old gray Sergeant, and he lay and said no more.
[ [1] The troops during the war were accustomed to express their incredulity, when news could not be traced to a trustworthy source, by saying that the tidings had been received by “grapevine telegraph.” Hence a canard was called a “grapevine.”—Editor.