ACROSS the brown and wintry morn, | |
| Borne on the soft wind’s wing, | |
| The weird sweet chords of a New Year’s Song | |
| Are struck by the coming Spring— | |
| Ah, would ’twere last year’s Spring! | 5 |
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| Under the leaves the violet bends, | |
| Laden with scented breath; | |
| Do they bend and blow thus sweetly | |
| Where the wooing air is death? | |
| Can flowers bloom in death? | 10 |
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| Out in the bridal robe of white | |
| Sweet hawthorne decks the lane; | |
| Who tuned the windharp’s thrilling string | |
| To the sad, sad minor strain? | |
| Hark! that sad minor strain! | 15 |
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| I think, as I see the whitening bloom | |
| Drift down in a fleecy cloud, | |
| Not of the mist of bridal veils, | |
| But the chill of an icy shroud— | |
| Snow is the soldier’s shroud. | 20 |
| |
| There’s a whisper of crocus and hyacinth | |
| Where fairies watch their birth; | |
| Methinks like little white babes they lie, | |
| Still-born on their mother-earth— | |
| Dead babes on the mother-earth. | 25 |
| |
| Where the dear warm blood flowed out so free, | |
| Did the wild wind steal its moans | |
| That fill me with an anguish of unshed tears? | |
| ’Tis the Banshee’s shivering groans! | |
| List! it shivers, and sobs, and groans! | 30 |
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| O spirit of sorrow, Banshee white! | |
| Wail on, for I cannot sleep; | |
| Coldness and darkness wander with me, | |
| The vigil of woe to keep— | |
| Pale woe her watch must keep. * * * * * | 35 |
| In the long, long march, did he track the snow | |
| With his weary bleeding feet? | |
| Was his dear face cold in the pelting rain, | |
| Or numbed by the blinding sleet? | |
| Barefoot through the blinding sleet! | 40 |
| |
| Was he pale from the pain, the hunger pain, | |
| Or did he step proud and strong | |
| To the onward note from the bugle’s throat | |
| When the boys cheered loud and long? | |
| Oh, the march was long, so long! | 45 |
| |
| Where, where is the sword whose gleaming blade | |
| Flashed up against the sky, | |
| And wrote in a broad white quivering line | |
| How Southern men could die!— | |
| Thus martyrs fighting die! | 50 |
| |
| Ho! Walthall’s men and Brantley’s line! | |
| The good steel must not rust; | |
| His name must be the battle-cry, | |
| His murderers bite the dust! | |
| They yet shall gnaw the dust! * * * * * | 55 |
| “Shot through the heart!” My own stands still, | |
| With its breaking, breaking pain; | |
| All, all grows dark, but the words of fire | |
| That burn my reeling brain— | |
| Rent heart and aching brain. | 60 |
| |
| Who sprang to his side in the foremost ranks, | |
| And over him bent the knee, | |
| To smooth from his brow the dark damp hair, | |
| And kiss him again for me? | |
| Who kissed his dear lips for me? | 65 |
| |
| Kind stranger, guard that sacred spot; | |
| He died to free thy land; | |
| His name thou’lt find on rude headboard, | |
| Carved there by pitying hand— | |
| God bless that soldier’s hand! | 70 |
| |
| We’ve watched and nursed your dying ones, | |
| Have wreathed their graves with flowers; | |
| Will any gentle hand thus wreathe | |
| That holy mound of ours? | |
| Oh, shield that grave of ours! | 75 |
| |
| Oh, the parching thirst and numbing cold | |
| And the hunger-pain are o’er; | |
| The weary feet, fresh sandalled now, | |
| Rest on the golden shore— | |
| Fair, God-lit, healing shore. * * * * * | 80 |
| In his threadbare suit, with its honor-stains, | |
| They laid him down to rest; | |
| Did they fold our flag, with its spotless stars, | |
| On my poor dead brother’s breast? | |
| Oh, dear, dear bleeding breast! | 85 |
| |
| Oh, say that I’m mad or dreaming— | |
| That Joy will come once more! | |
| Then the Summer woods of the bright Southland | |
| May leaf as they leaved of yore! | |
| With Life they sprung of yore! | 90 |
| |
| Then the hills may don their arabesque, | |
| And the arcenciel may shine, | |
| While the rose on the cheek of the blushing year | |
| Wooes the roses back to mine: | |
| The roses have died on mine. | 95 |
| |
| No, the Spring will pass, and Summer fruit, | |
| And Fall sheaves gild the ground; | |
| But the sad weird song the Banshee sings | |
| Will follow the whole year round— | |
| Dark Winter the whole year round! | 100 |
| |
| Down in the glen the dogwood white, | |
| By the maple’s living red, | |
| But brings to mind the cold, cold sheet | |
| That shrouds the living dead!— | |
| Snow shrouds our darling dead! | 105 |
| |
| Oh, weary Winter has almost gone, | |
| With its Christmas berries swung; | |
| They seem but drops of human blood | |
| From human anguish wrung! | |
| O God, our hearts are wrung! | 110 |
| |
| “Killed outright!”—Oh, wretched dream! | |
| When, when shall I awake? | |
| If the words ring on, thus wildly on, | |
| My tortured heart must break!— | |
| God help me ere it break! | 115 |
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