* * * * *
With far-off vision gazing clear
Beyond this gloomy atmosphere
Which shuts us out with doubt and fear
He—marking how her high increase
Ran greatening in perpetual lease
Through balmy years of odorous Peace
Greeted in one transcendent cry
Of intense, passionate ecstasy
The sight which thrilled him utterly;
Saluting, with most proud disdain
Of murder and of mortal pain,
The vision which shall be again!
So, lifted with prophetic pride,
Raised conquering hands to heaven and cried:
"All hail the Stars and Stripes!" and died.
THE PICKET GUARD
ETHEL LYNN BEERS
[Sidenote: Sept., 1861] The stereotyped announcement, "All Quiet on the Potomac," was followed one day in September, 1861, by the words, "A Picket Shot," and these so moved the authoress that she wrote this poem on the impulse of the moment.
"All quiet along the Potomac," they say,
"Except now and then a stray picket
Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro,
By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
'Tis nothing—a private or two, now and then,
Will not count in the news of the battle;
Not an officer lost—only one of the men,
Moaning out, all alone, the death rattle."