By Maurice Bell.
In the dusk of the forest shade
A sallow and dusty group reclined;
Gallops a horseman up the glade--
"Where will I your leader find?
Tidings I bring from the morning's scout--
I've borne them o'er mound, and moor, and fen."
"Well, sir, stay not hereabout,
Here are only a few of 'the men.'
"Here no collar has bar or star,
No rich lacing adorns a sleeve;
Further on our officers are,
Let them your report receive.
Higher up, on the hill up there,
Overlooking this shady glen.
There are their quarters--don't stop here,
We are only some of 'the men.'
"Yet stay, courier, if you bear
Tidings that the fight is near;
Tell them we're ready, and that where
They wish us to be we'll soon appear;
Tell them only to let us know
Where to form our ranks, and when;
And we'll teach the vaunting foe
That they've met a few of 'the men.'
"We're the men, though our clothes are worn--
We're the men, though we wear no lace--
We're the men, who the foe hath torn,
And scattered their ranks in dire disgrace;
We're the men who have triumphed before--
We're the men who will triumph again;
For the dust, and the smoke, and the cannon's roar,
And the clashing bayonets--'we're the men.'
"Ye who sneer at the battle-scars,
Of garments faded, and soiled and bare,
Yet who have for the 'stars and bars'
Praise, and homage, and dainty fare;
Mock the wearers and pass them on,
Refuse them kindly word--and then
Know, if your freedom is ever won
By human agents--these are the men!"
"A Rebel Soldier Killed in the Trenches before Petersburg, Va., April 15, 1865."
By a Kentucky Girl.
Killed in the trenches! How cold and bare
The inscription graved on the white card there.
'Tis a photograph, taken last Spring, they say,
Ere the smoke of battle had cleared away--
Of a rebel soldier--just as he fell,
When his heart was pierced by a Union shell;
And his image was stamped by the sunbeam's ray,
As he lay in the trenches that April day.
Oh God! Oh God! How my woman's heart
Thrills with a quick, convulsive pain,
As I view, unrolled by the magic of Art,
One dreadful scene from the battle-plain:--
White as the foam of the storm-tossed wave,
Lone as the rocks those billows lave--
Gray sky above--cold clay beneath--
A gallant form lies stretched in death!