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1860 ’T WAS far in May, a heavenly day,— | |
| The skies were bright, the fields were gay | |
| With blossoms, butterflies, and bees, | |
| And singing birds in the cherry-trees; | |
| And the air from gardens, woods, and bowers | 5 |
| Was sweet with the breath of vernal flowers; | |
| And the waving wheat-fields seemed to me | |
| The gleaming waves of a summer sea, | |
| That May-day at Manassas. | |
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| And flocks and herds, in pastures green, | 10 |
| Enlivened far and wide the scene; | |
| And here and there, on hill and plain, | |
| Stood clustering stacks of hay and grain; | |
| And near the old-time mansion played | |
| Its pickaninnies in the shade, | 15 |
| While the “field-hand” slave forgot his wrongs | |
| Of bondage, in his cheerful songs, | |
| That May-day at Manassas. * * * * * | |
1862 YET once again I passed that way, | |
| In the morning of another May; | 20 |
| But what an awful change was there, | |
| Affecting even the light and air! | |
| Are these realities? They seem | |
| The horrors of a hideous dream. | |
| I looked appalled and in surprise | 25 |
| On the blackened earth and smoky skies, | |
| That May-day at Manassas. | |
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| No fields of wheat the picture graced,— | |
| Their very landmarks were effaced; | |
| No flocks or herds or stacks of grain | 30 |
| Were visible on hill or plain; | |
| But pits, redoubts, and many a mound, | |
| Where the bones of men in the shallow ground | |
| Lay buried from the battle’s toil, | |
| Or partly whitening on the soil, | 35 |
| That May-day at Manassas. * * * * * | |
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