You should have seen our leader go
Upon the battle's burning marge,
Swooping, like falcon, on the foe,
Heading the gray line's iron charge!
All outcasts from our ruined marts,
We heard th' undying serpent hiss,
And in the desert of our hearts
The fatal spell of Nemesis.
The Southern yell rang loud and high
The moment that we thundered in,
Smiting the demons hip and thigh,
Cleaving them to the very chin.
My right arm bared for fiercer play,
The left one held the rein in slack;
In all the fury of the fray
I sought the white man, not the black.
The dabbled clots of brain and gore
Across the swirling sabres ran;
To me each brutal visage bore
The front of one accursed man.
Throbbing along the frenzied vein,
My blood seemed kindled into song--
The death-dirge of the sacred slain,
The slogan of immortal wrong.
It glared athwart the dripping glaves,
It blazed in each avenging eye--
The thought of desecrated graves,
And some lone sister's desperate cry!
From the Rapidan--1864.
A low wind in the pines!
And a dull pain in the breast!
And oh! for the sigh of her lips and eyes--
One touch of the hand I pressed!
The slow, sad lowland wind,
It sighs through the livelong day,
While the splendid mountain breezes blow,
And the autumn is burning away.