BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 95 Fold him in his country's stars, What but death-bemocking folly? In the clover or the snow! What cares he? he cannot know: Leave him to God's watching eye; Trust him to the hand that made him. Mortal love weeps idly by: God alone has power to aid him. Lay him low, lay him low, In the clover or the snow! What cares he? he cannot know: Lay him low! George Henry Boker. THE BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred cir cling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps; His day is marching on. I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on." He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat: Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. Julia Ward Howe. THE BRAVE AT HOME THE maid who binds her warrior's sash With smile that well her pain dissembles, One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles, DRIFTING Though Heaven alone records the tear, As e'er bedewed the field of glory. The wife who girds her husband's sword, The bolts of death around him rattle, Was poured upon the field of battle! The mother who conceals her grief While to her breast her son she presses, Then breathes a few brave words and brief, Kissing the patriot brow she blesses, With no one but her secret God To know the pain that weighs upon her, Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod Received on Freedom's field of honor! 97 Thomas Buchanan Read. DRIFTING My soul to-day Is far away, My winged boat, A bird afloat, Swings round the purple peaks remote: Round purple peaks It sails, and seeks Blue inlets and their crystal creeks, Where high rocks throw, Through deeps below, A duplicated golden glow. Far, vague, and dim, The mountains swim; While on Vesuvius' misty brim, With outstretched hands, The gray smoke stands O'erlooking the volcanic lands. Here Ischia smiles O'er liquid miles; And yonder, bluest of the isles, Calm Capri waits, Her sapphire gates Beguiling to her bright estates. I heed not if My rippling skiff Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff; With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Under the walls of Paradise. Under the walls Where swells and falls The Bay's deep breast at intervals, At peace I lie, Blown softly by, A cloud upon this liquid sky. DRIFTING The day, so mild, Is Heaven's own child, With Earth and Ocean reconciled; The airs I feel Around me steal Are murmuring to the murmuring keel. Over the rail My hand I trail Within the shadow of the sail, The cooling sense Glides down my drowsy indolence. With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Where Summer sings and never dies, She glows and shines Among her future oil and wines. Her children, hid The cliffs amid, Are gamboling with the gamboling kid; Or down the walls, With tipsy calls, Laugh on the rocks like waterfalls. The fisher's child, With tresses wild, Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled, With glowing lips Sings as she skips, Or gazes at the far-off ships. 99 |