cannon-glare and the piercing musket- flash, when the wounded strew the ground, and the dead litter your path, then remember, soldiers, that God is with you. The Eternal God fights for you-he rides on the battle cloud, he sweeps onward with the march of the hurricane charge. The Awful and the Infinite fights for you, and you will triumph.
"They that take the sword shall perish by the sword." You have taken the sword, but not in the spirit of wrong and ravage. You have taken the sword for your homes, for your wives, for your little ones.
You have taken the sword for truth, for justice and right and to you the promise is, be of good cheer, for your foes have taken the sword, in defiance of all that man holds dear-in blasphemy of God; they shall perish by the sword.
And now, brethren and soldiers, I bid you all farewell. Many of us may fall in the fight of to-morrow— God rest the souls of the fallen-many of us may live to tell the story of the fight of to-morrow, and in the memory of all, will ever rest and linger the quiet scene of this autumnal night. Solemn twilight advances over the valley; the woods on the opposite heights fling their long shadows over the green of the meadow; around us are the tents of the continental host, the half suppressed bustle of the camp, the hurried tramp of soldiers to and fro; now the confusion, and now the stillness which mark the eve of battle. When we meet again, may the long shadows of twilight be flung over a peaceful land. God in heaven grant it.
"Twas late, and the gay company was gone,
And light lay soft on the deserted room
From alabaster vases, and a scent
Of orange-leaves, and sweet verbena came
Through the unshutter'd window on the air,
And the rich pictures with their dark old tints,
Hung like a twilight landscape, and all things
Seem'd hush'd into a slumber. Isabel,
The dark-eyed, spiritual Isabel
Was leaning on her harp, and I had staid
To whisper what I could not when the crowd
Hung on her look like worshippers. I knelt,
And with the fervor of a lip unused
To the cold breath of reason, told my love.
There was no answer, and I took the hand
That rested on the strings, and press'd a kiss
Upon it unforbidden--and again
Besought her, that this silent evidence
That I was not indifferent to her heart,
Might have the seal of one sweet syllable.
I kissed the small white fingers as I spoke,
And she withdrew them gently, and upraised
Her forehead from its resting-place, and look'd
Earnestly on me-She had been asleep!
JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG.
HAVE you heard the story the gossips tell
Of John Burns of Gettysburg ?-No? Ah, well.
Brief is the glory that hero earns,
Briefer the story of poor John Burns;
He was the fellow who won renown
The only man who didn't back down
When the rebels rode through his native town;
But held his own in the fight next day,
When all his townsfolk ran away.
That was in July, sixty-three,
The very day that General Lee,
The flower of Southern chivalry,
Baffled and beaten, backward reeled
From a stubborn Meade and a barren field.
I might tell how, but the day before,
John Burns stood at his cottage-door,
Looking down the village street,
Where, in the shade of his peaceful vine,
He heard the low of his gathered kine,
And felt their breath with incense sweet;
Or, I might say, when the sunset burned
The old farm gable, he thought it turned
The milk that fell in a babbling flood
Into the milk-pail, red as blood;
Or, how he fancied the hum of bees
Were bullets buzzing among the trees.
But all such fanciful thoughts as these
Were strange to a practical man like Burns,
Who minded only his own concerns,
Troubled no more by fancies fine
Than one of his calm-eyed, long-tailed kino—
Quite old-fashioned, and matter-of-fact,
Slow to argue, but quick to act.
That was the reason, as some folks say,
He fought so well on that terrible day.
And it was terrible. On the right
Raged for hours the heavy fight,
Thundered the battery's double bass-
Difficult music for men to face;
While on the left-where now the graves
Undulate like the living waves
That all the day unceasing swept
Up to the pits the rebels kept—
Round shot plowed the upland glades,
Sown with bullets, reaped with blades;
Shattered fences here and there
Tossed their splinters in the air;
The very trees were stripped and bare ;
The barns that once held yellow grain
Were heaped with harvests of the slain;
The cattle bellowed on the plain,
The turkeys screamed with might and main,
And brooding barn-fowl left their rest
With strange shells bursting in each nest.
Just where the tide of battle turns,
Erect and lonely, stood old John Burns.
How do you think the man was dressed?
He wore an ancient, long buff vest,
Yellow as safiron-but his best;
And, buttoned over his manly breast
Was a bright blue coat with a rolling collar,
And large gilt buttons-size of a dollar-
With tails that country-folk called "swaller."
He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned hat,
White as the locks on which it sat.
Never had such a sight been seen
For forty years on the village-green,
Since John Burns was a country beau,
And went to the "quilting" long ago.
Close at his elbows, all that day
Veterans of the Peninsula,
Sunburnt and bearded. charged away,
And striplings, downy of lip and chin,-
Clerks that the Home Guard mustered in-
Glanced as they passed at the hat he wore,
Then at the rifle his right hand bore;
And hailed him from out their youthful lore,
With scraps of a slangy reportoire :
"How are you, White Hat?" "Put her through !"
"Your head's level!" and, "Bully for you!"
Called him "Daddy"-and begged he'd disclose
The name of the tailor who made his clothes,
And what was the value he set on those;
While Burns, unmindful of jeer and scoff,
Stood there picking the rebels off-
With his long, brown rifle and bell-crown hat,
And the swallow-tails they were laughing at.
'Twas but a moment, for that respect
Which clothes all courage their voices checked;
And something the wildest could understand
Spake in the old man's strong right hand,
And his corded throat, and the lurking frown
Of his eyebrows under his old-bell crown;
Until, as they gazed, there crept an awe
Through the ranks in whispers, and some men saw,
In the antique vestments and long white hair
The Past of the Nation in battle there.
And some of the soldiers since declare
That the gleam of his old white hat afar,
Like the crested plume of the brave Navarre,
That day was their oriflamme of war.
Thus raged the battle. You know the rest;
How the rebels, beaten, and backward pressed,
Broke at the final charge and ran.
At which John Burns-a practical man
Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows,
And then went back to his bees and cows.
This is the story of old John Burns;
This is the moral the reader learns :
In fighting the battle, the question's whether
You'll show a hat that's white, or a feather.
HOUR of an Empire's overthrow !
The princes from the feast were gone; The Idol flame was burning low;'Twas midnight upon Babylon.
That night the feast was wild and high;
That night was Sion's gold profaned;
The seal was set to blasphemy;
The last deep cup of wrath was drained.
'Mid jeweled roof and silken pall,
Belshazzar on his couch was flung;
A burst of thunder filled the hall-
He heard-but 'twas no mortal tongue :
"King of the East! the trumpet calls,
That calls thee to a tyrant's grave;
A curse is on thy palace walls-
A curse is on thy guardian wave:
"A surge is in Euphrates' bed,
That never filled its bed before;
A surge, that, ere the morn be red,
Shall load with death its haughty shore.
"Behold a tide of Persian steel!
A torrent of the Median car;
Like flame their gory banners wheel;
Rise, king, and arm thee for the war!"
Belshazzar gazed; the voice was past--
The lofty chamber filled with gloom;
But echoed on the sudden blast
The rushing of a mighty plume.
He listened; all again was still!
He heard no chariot's iron clang ;
He heard the fountain's gushing rill,
The breeze that through the roses sang.
He slept; in sleep wild murmurs came;
A visioned splendor fired the sky;
He heard Belshazzar's taunted name;
He heard again the Prophet cry-
"Sleep, Sultan! 'tis thy final sleep,
Or wake, or sleep, the guilty dies;
The wrongs of those who watch and weep,
Around thee and thy nation rise."
He started; 'mid the battle's yell
He saw the Persian rushing on:
He saw the flames around him swell;
Thou'rt ashes! King of Babylon.
|