HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG 205

And Chickamauga's solitudes,

The fierce South cheering on her sons!

Ah, how the withering tempest blew
Against the front of Pettigrew!

A Khamsin wind that scorched and singed
Like that infernal flame that fringed
The British squares at Waterloo!

A thousand fell where Kemper led;
A thousand died where Garnett bled:
In blinding flame and strangling smoke
The remnant through the batteries broke
And crossed the works with Armistead.

"Once more in Glory's van with me!" Virginia cried to Tennessee;

"We two together, come what may, Shall stand upon these works to-day!" (The reddest day in history.)

Brave Tennessee! In reckless way

Virginia heard her comrade say:

"Close round this rent and riddled rag!"

What time she set her battle-flag

Amid the guns of Doubleday.

But who shall break the guards that wait

Before the awful face of Fate?

The tattered standards of the South
Were shriveled at the cannon's mouth,

And all her hopes were desolate.

In vain the Tennesseean set
His breast against the bayonet!
In vain Virginia charged and raged,
A tigress in her wrath uncaged,
Till all the hill was red and wet!

Above the bayonets, mixed and crossed,
Men saw a gray, gigantic ghost
Receding through the battle-cloud,
And heard across the tempest loud
The death-cry of a nation lost!

The brave went down! Without disgrace
They leaped to Ruin's red embrace.
They only heard Fame's thunders wake,
And saw the dazzling sun-burst break
In smiles on Glory's bloody face!

They fell, who lifted up a hand
And bade the sun in heaven to stand!
They smote and fell, who set the bars
Against the progress of the stars,
And stayed the march of Motherland!

They stood, who saw the future come
On through the fight's delirium!

They smote and stood, who held the hope
Of nations on that slippery slope

Amid the cheers of Christendom.

God lives! He forged the iron will

That clutched and held that trembling hill.

MONUMENT TO LORD BYRON 207

God lives and reigns! He built and lent
The heights for Freedom's battlement
Where floats her flag in triumph still!

Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns!
Love rules. Her gentler purpose runs.
A mighty mother turns in tears
The pages of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons!

Will Thompson.

ON THE PROPOSAL TO ERECT A
MONUMENT IN ENGLAND
TO LORD BYRON

THE grass of fifty Aprils hath waved green
Above the spent heart, the Olympian head,
The hands crost idly, the shut eyes unseen,

Unseeing, the locked lips whose song hath fled; Yet mystic-lived, like some rich, tropic flower, His fame puts forth fresh blossoms hour by hour; Wide spread the laden branches dropping dew On the low, laurelled brow misunderstood, That bent not, neither bowed, until subdued By the last foe who crowned while he o'erthrew.

Fair was the Easter Sabbath morn when first

Men heard he had not wakened to its light: The end had come, and time had done its worst, For the black cloud had fallen of endless night. Then in the town, as Greek accosted Greek, "T was not the wonted festal words to speak,

"Christ is arisen," but "Our chief is gone,"
With such wan aspect and grief-smitten head
As when the awful cry of "Pan is dead!”
Filled echoing hill and valley with its moan.

"I am more fit for death than the world deems,"
So spake he as life's light was growing dim,
And turned to sleep as unto soothing dreams.
What terrors could its darkness hold for him,
Familiar with all anguish, but with fear
Still unacquainted? On his martial bier
They laid a sword, a helmet, and a crown
Meed of the warrior, but not these among

His voiceless lyre, whose silent chords unstrung Shall wait how long? - for touches like his own.

An alien country mourned him as her son,

And hailed him hero: his sole, fitting tomb Were Theseus' temple or the Parthenon,

Fondly she deemed. His brethren bare him home, Their exiled glory, past the guarded gate

Where England's Abbey shelters England's great.
Afar he rests whose very name hath shed
New lustre on her with the song he sings.

So Shakespeare rests who scorned to lie with kings, Sleeping at peace midst the unhonored dead.

Emma Lazarus.

VENUS OF THE LOUVRE

Down the long hall she glistens like a star,
The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone,
Yet none the less immortal, breathing on.

Time's brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar.

DAYS THAT COME AND GO 209

When first the enthralled enchantress from afar
Dazzled mine eyes, I saw her not alone,

Serenely poised on her world-worshipped throne,
As when she guided once her dove-drawn car,
But at her feet a pale, death-stricken Jew,
Her life adorer, sobbed farewell to love.
Here Heine wept! Here still he weeps anew,
Nor ever shall his shadow lift or move,

While mourns one ardent heart, one poet-brain,
For vanished Hellas and Hebraic pain.

Emma Lazarus.

ONE

ONE whitest lily, reddest rose,
None other such the summer knows;
Of bird or brook one perfect tune,
And sung is all the sweet of June.

Once come and gone, the one dear face,
Forever empty is its place;

But one far voice the lover hears,

Calling across the waste of years.

John Vance Cheney.

DAYS THAT COME AND GO

DAYS that come and go,

It is not worth the while;
Only one dawn I know,

The morning of her smile.