I hear again the tread of war go thundering through the land,
And Puritan and Cavalier are clinching neck and hand,
Round Shiloh church the furious foes have met to thrust and slay,
Where erst the peaceful sons of Christ were wont to kneel and pray.

The wrestling of the ages shakes the hills of Tennessee,
With all their echoing mounts a-throb with war's wild minstrelsy;
A galaxy of stars new-born round the shield of Mars,
And set against the Stars and Stripes the flashing Stars and Bars.

'Twas Albert Sidney Johnston led the columns of the Gray,

The wind—the world-old rhapsodist—goes by,
And the great pines in changeless vesture gloomed,
And all the towering elm-trees thatched and plumed
With green, take up, one after one, the cry,
And as their choral voices swell and die,
Catching the infinite note from tree to tree,
Others far off in long antistrophe
With swaying arms and surging tops, reply.
So to men's souls, at sacred intervals,
Out of the dust of life takes wing and calls
A spirit that we know not, nor can trace,
And heart to heart makes answer with strange thrill,

‘O Jesus Christ! I'm hit,’ he said; and died.
Whether he vainly cursed, or prayed indeed,
The Bullets chirped—In vain! vain! vain!
Machine-guns chuckled,—Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
And the Big Gun guffawed.

Another sighed,—‘O Mother, mother! Dad!’
Then smiled, at nothing, childlike, being dead.
And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured,—Fool!
And the falling splinters tittered.

‘My Love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till, slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
And the Bayonets' long teeth grinned;

Thou loveliest of the lovely, where
Is thy bright spirit gone?
Where is thy gentle throne;
In what sweet and silver sphere?

Tell me, my H ELENA , that I
All night on thee may gaze,
And know thy temple's blaze
From all the splendours of the sky.

Oh! if the loved in death return,
To love and look upon
The pale, heart-broken one,
Who weeps at midnight o'er their urn;

Tell me, when on the blissful air
They stoop, that I may be
Found fit to welcome thee,
With hands and heart upraised in prayer.

Love, I recant,
And pardon crave,
That lately I offended,
But 'twas,
Alas,
To make a brave,
But no disdaine intended.

No more Ile vaunt,
For now I see,
Thou onely hast the power,
To find,
And bind
A heart that's free,
And slave it in an houre.

A LITTLE figure glided through the hall;
“Is that you, Pet?” the words came tenderly:
A sob—suppressed to let the answer fall—
“It is n't Pet, mamma; it's only me.”

The quivering baby lips! they had not meant
To utter any word could plant a sting,
But to that mother-heart a strange pang went;
She heard, and stood like a convicted thing!

One instant, and a happy little face
Thrilled 'neath unwonted kisses rained above:
And, from that moment, “Only Me” had place
And part with “Pet” in tender mother-love.

When he was young and beautiful and bold
We hated him, for he was very strong.
But when he came back home again, quite old,
And wounded too, we could not hate him long.

For kingliness and conquest pranced he forth
Like some high-stepping charger bright with foam.
And south he strode and east and west and north
With need of crowns and never need of home.

Enraged we heard high tidings of his strength
And cursed his long forgetfulness. We swore
That should he come back home some eve at length,
We would deny him, we would bar the door!

So hot shines the sun on the Nile's fertile shore,
The shade of the palms can protect us no more.
Then back to our home-land we fain would set forth,
Our squadrons assemble: “Away! to the north!”

And there far below like a grave to our view
We see the green earth and the ocean so blue,
Where storms and unrest never cease, but on high
As free as the clouds of the heavens we fly.

Far up mid the mountains a vale is outspread,
And there we alight and prepare us a bed.
Our eggs near the Pole then are laid every one,

A grove of woods, as if brushed over, trees vague,
the moon atop the woods, opaque, is about to fade.
On my return passage I simply rely on fireflies for the light;
along the bank the water's dark, the rushes grown tall.

On Bunker-shore a village stands,
Where salt-sea waters flow,
Between sand-hills and scrub-oak lands,
And winds know how to blow.

The town was built upon some whales,
In prosperous years of yore,
Swept from the seas by boisterous gales,
And cast upon the shore.

A fishy smell is all around,—
“An ancient, fish-like smell;”
Upon, and in, and under ground,
In every spring and well.

The houses there of fish are built;
And all the people own,
From whale-ship down to cradle-quilt,
Is made of fish alone.