Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War | Page 2

free)

And the Iron Dome,
Stronger for stress and strain,
Fling her huge
shadow athwart the main;
But the Founders' dream shall flee.
Agee
after age shall be
As age after age has been,
(From man's
changeless heart their way they win);
And death be busy with all who strive--
Death, with silent negative.
YEA, AND NAY--
EACH HATH HIS SAY;
BUT GOD HE
KEEPS THE MIDDLE WAY.
NONE WAS BY
WHEN HE
SPREAD THE SKY;
WISDOM IS VAIN, AND PROPHESY.
Apathy and Enthusiasm.
(1860-1.)

I
O the clammy cold November,
And the winter white and dead,
And
the terror dumb with stupor,
And the sky a sheet of lead;
And
events that came resounding
With the cry that _All was lost_,
Like
the thunder-cracks of massy ice
In intensity of frost--
Bursting one
upon another
Through the horror of the calm.
The paralysis of arm

In the anguish of the heart;
And the hollowness and dearth.
The
appealings of the mother
To brother and to brother
Not in hatred so
to part--
And the fissure in the hearth
Growing momently more
wide.
Then the glances 'tween the Fates,
And the doubt on every
side,
And the patience under gloom
In the stoniness that waits

The finality of doom.
II
So the winter died despairing,
And the weary weeks of Lent;
And
the ice-bound rivers melted,
And the tomb of Faith was rent.
O, the
rising of the People
Came with springing of the grass,
They
rebounded from dejection
And Easter came to pass.
And the young
were all elation
Hearing Sumter's cannon roar,
And they thought
how tame the Nation
In the age that went before.
And Michael
seemed gigantical,
The Arch-fiend but a dwarf;
And at the towers
of Erebus
Our striplings flung the scoff.
But the elders with
foreboding
Mourned the days forever o'er,
And re called the forest
proverb,

The Iroquois' old saw:
_Grief to every graybeard
When
young Indians lead the war._
The March into Virginia,
Ending in the First Manassas.
(July,
1861.)
Did all the lets and bars appear
To every just or larger end,
Whence
should come the trust and cheer?
Youth must its ignorant impulse
lend--
Age finds place in the rear.
All wars are boyish, and are

fought by boys,
The champions and enthusiasts of the state:
Turbid
ardors and vain joys
Not barrenly abate--
Stimulants to the power
mature,
Preparatives of fate.
Who here forecasteth the event?
What heart but spurns at precedent

And warnings of the wise,
Contemned foreclosures of surprise?
The banners play, the bugles call,
The air is blue and prodigal.
No
berrying party, pleasure-wooed,
No picnic party in the May,
Ever
went less loth than they
Into that leafy neighborhood.
In Bacchic
glee they file toward Fate,
Moloch's uninitiate;
Expectancy, and
glad surmise
Of battle's unknown mysteries.
All they feel is this: 'tis
glory,
A rapture sharp, though transitory,
Yet lasting in belaureled
story.
So they gayly go to fight,
Chatting left and laughing right.
But some who this blithe mood present,
As on in lightsome files they
fare,
Shall die experienced ere three days are spent--
Perish,
enlightened by the vollied glare;
Or shame survive, and, like to
adamant,
The throe of Second Manassas share.
Lyon.
Battle of Springfield, Missouri.
(August, 1861.)
Some hearts there are of deeper sort,
Prophetic, sad,
Which yet for cause are trebly clad;
Known death they fly on:
This wizard-heart and heart-of-oak had
Lyon.
"They are more than twenty thousand strong,
We less than five,
Too few with such a host to strive"
"Such counsel, fie on!
'Tis battle, or 'tis shame;" and firm stood Lyon.
"For help at need in van we wait--

Retreat or fight:
Retreat the foe would take for flight,
And each proud scion
Feel more elate; the end must come," said
Lyon.
By candlelight he wrote the will,
And left his all
To Her for whom 'twas not enough to fall;
Loud neighed Orion
Without the tent; drums beat; we marched with
Lyon.
The night-tramp done, we spied the Vale
With guard-fires lit;
Day broke, but trooping clouds made gloom of
it:
"A field to die on"
Presaged in his unfaltering heart, brave Lyon.
We fought on the grass, we bled in the corn--
Fate seemed malign;
His horse the Leader led along the line--
Star-browed Orion;
Bitterly fearless, he rallied us there, brave Lyon.
There came a sound like the slitting of air
By a swift sharp sword--
A rush of the sound; and the sleek chest
broad
Of black Orion
Heaved, and was fixed; the dead mane waved toward
Lyon.
"General, you're hurt--this sleet of balls!"
He seemed half spent;
With moody and bloody brow, he lowly bent:
"The field to die on;
But not--not yet; the day is long," breathed

Lyon.
For a time becharmed there fell a lull
In the heart of the fight;
The tree-tops nod, the slain sleep light;
Warm noon-winds sigh on,
And thoughts which he never spake had
Lyon.
Texans and Indians trim for a charge:
"Stand ready, men!
Let them come close, right up, and then
After the lead, the iron;
Fire, and charge back!" So strength returned
to Lyon.
The Iowa men who held the van,
Half drilled, were new
To battle: "Some one lead us, then we'll do"
Said Corporal Tryon:
"Men! _I_ will lead," and a light glared in
Lyon.
On they came: they yelped, and fired;
His spirit sped;
We leveled right in, and the half-breeds fled,
Nor stayed the iron,
Nor captured