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With a GRUNT-GRUNT here, and a GRUNT-GRUNT there,
And here a GRUNT, and there a GRUNT,
And everywhere a GRUNT;
With a CHUCK-CHUCK here, and a CHUCK-CHUCK there,
And here a CHUCK, and there a CHUCK,
And everywhere a CHUCK;
With a BAA-BAA here, and a BAA-BAA there,
&c., &c., &c.
With a GEE-WO here, and a GEE-WO there,
&c., &c., &c.
Says I, My pretty lass, will you come to the banks of the Aire oh?
Oh, cursed for aye that traitor’s hand,
And cursed that aim so deadly,
Which smote the bravest of the land,
And dyed his bosom redly!
Serene he lay, while past him prest
The battle’s furious billow,
As calmly as a babe may rest
Rest, patriot, in thy hill-side grave,
Beside her form who bore thee!
Long may the land thou diedst to save
Her bannered stars wave o’er thee!
Upon her history’s brightest page,
And on Fame’s glowing portal,
She’ll write thy grand, heroic rage
And grave thy name immortal.
Along the beaten path I pace,
Where white rays mark my sentry’s track;
In formless shrubs I seem to trace
The foeman’s form with bending back,
I think I see him crouching low;
I stop and list--I stoop and peer,
Until the neighboring hillocks grow
And then that bitter, bitter day,
When came the final hour to part;
When, clad in soldier’s honest gray,
I pressed her weeping to my heart;
Too proud of me to bid me stay,
Too fond of me to let me go,
I had to tear myself away,
But in the tent that night awake,
I ask, if in the fray I fall,
Can I the mystic answer make
When the angelic sentries call?
And pray that Heaven may so ordain,
Whene’er I go, what fate be mine,
Whether in pleasure or in pain,
I still may have the countersign.
White, yaller, black, an’ brown, John;
Now which is your idee?
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
John preaches wal,” sez he;
“But, sermon thru, an’ come to _du_,
Why there’s the old J. B.
A-crowdin’ you an’ me!”
’T is vocal without noise;
It gushed o’er Manassas’ solemn plains,
From the blood of the MARYLAND BOYS!
That blood shall cry aloud, and rise
With an everlasting threat;
By the death of the brave, by the GOD in the skies,
_There’s life in the old land yet_!
But ooze-flats as far as the eye can reach,
With shallows of water-grass;
Reedy Savannahs, vast and dun,
Lying dead in the dim March sun;
Huge, rotting trunks and roots that lie
Like the blackened bones of shapes gone by,
“Mark well each signal I make,--
(Our life-long service at stake,
And honor that must not lag!)
What e’er the peril and awe,
In the battle’s fieriest flaw,
Let never one ship withdraw
Till the orders come from the flag!”
But these things are, somehow, shorter,
In the acting than in the telling;
There was no singing out or yelling,
Or any fussing and fretting,
No stampede, in short;
But there we were, my lad,
All afire on our port quarter,
Hammocks ablaze in the netting,
Flames spouting in at every port,
Our fourth cutter burning at the davit
(No chance to lower away and save it).
Lord of mercy and frown,
Ruling o’er sea and shore,
Send us such scene once more!
All in line of battle
When the black ships bear down
On tyrant fort and town,
’Mid cannon cloud and rattle;
And the great guns once more
Thunder back the roar
Of the traitor walls ashore,
And the traitor flags come down.
And wider still those billows of war
Thunder’d along the horizon’s bar;
And louder yet into Winchester roll’d
The roar of that red sea uncontroll’d,
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
Through the wild battle’s crush,
With but one thought aflush,
Driving their lords like chaff,
In the gun’s mouth they laugh;
Or at the slippery brands,
Leaping with open hands,
Down they tear man and horse,
Down in their awful course;
Trampling with bloody heel
Glad to strike one free blow,
Whether for weal or woe;
Glad to breathe one free breath,
Though on the lips of death;
Praying,--alas! in vain!
That they might fall again,
So they could once more see
That burst to liberty!
This was what “freedom” lent
Round-shot ploughed the upland glades,
Sown with bullets, reaped with blades;
Shattered fences here and there,
Tossed their splinters in the air;
The very trees were stripped and bare;
The barns that once held yellow grain
Were heaped with harvests of the slain;
The cattle bellowed on the plain,
The turkeys screamed with might and main,
And brooding barn-fowl left their rest
They have gathered about you the harvest
Of death, in its ghastliest view;
The nearest as well as the farthest
Is here with the traitor and true!
And crowned with your beautiful patience,
Made sunny with love at the heart,
You must balsam the wounds of a nation,
Nor falter, nor shrink from your part!
Forging boldly ahead,
The great Flag-Ship led,
Grandest of sights!
On her lofty mizzen flew
Our leader’s dauntless Blue,
That had waved o’er twenty fights
So we went with the first of the tide,
Slowly, ’mid the roar
Of the rebel guns ashore
Ahead lay the _Tennessee_,
On our starboard bow he lay,
With his mail-clad consorts three
(The rest had run up the bay);
There he was, belching flame from his bow,
And the steam from his throat’s abyss
Was a Dragon’s maddened hiss;
Right abreast of the Fort
In an awful shroud they lay,
Broadsides thundering away,
And lightning from every port;
Scene of glory and dread!
A storm-cloud all aglow
With flashes of fiery red,
The thunder raging below,
And the forest of flags o’erhead!