A baleful brand, a hurrying torch Breathless we gaze; yet still we glean The effulgence takes an amber glow Painting the pale magnolia The fair, false, Circe light of cruel War. The barge drifts doomed, a plague-struck one, Shoreward in yawls the sailors fly. But the gauntlet now is nearly run, The spleenful forts by fits reply, And the burning boat dies down in morning's sky. All out of range. Adieu, Messieurs ! Jeers, as it speeds, our parting gun. So burst we through their barriers So Porter proves himself a brave man's son. B Y the shrouded gleam of the western skies, For an instant-clear, and cool, and still; Cavalry, charge!" Not a man of them shrank; Their sharp, full cheer, from rank on rank, Rose joyously, with a willing breath Rose like a greeting hail to death. Then forward they sprang, and spurred, and clashed; Shouted the officers, crimson-sashed; Rode well the men, each brave as his fellow, And above in the air, with an instinct true, With clank of scabbards and thunder of steeds, Line after line the troopers came To the edge of the wood that was ring'd with flame; Rode in and sabred and shot-and fell: Nor came one back his wounds to tell. And full in the midst rose Keenan, tall In the gloom, like a martyr awaiting his fall, 'Round his head, like a halo there, luminous hung. Line after line, ay, whole platoons, Struck dead in their saddles, of brave dragoons By the maddened horses were onward borne So they rode, till there were no more to ride. But over them lying there, shattered and mute, And the whippoorwill chants his spectre-call; They have ceased. But their glory shall never cease, That saved the army at Chancellorsville. OT 'mid the lightning of the stormy fight, Not in the rush upon the vandal foe, Did kingly Death, with his resistless might, His warrior soul its earthly shackles broke Though his alone the blood that flecks the ground, He entered not the Nation's Promised Land At the red belching of the cannon's mouth; But broke the House of Bondage with his handThe Moses of the South! |