TH Since the fisher went away, And the sun-burnt child it hath not smil'd This many and many a day. And the schools of mack'rel come unscared For the fisherman said one spring-time : "Dear wife, I have set my sail These twenty years to the northern meres, The icebergs, the mist and gale, And my country hath paid the shot, good wife, However I chanced to fail. 'Yes, paid for my sailor's knowledge, And the skill of my ready hand; And the blue on my arm, as a sacred charm, Is the flag that guards the land. The time has come to pay that debt, Tho' my life it should demand. So bravely the loyal fisher Sailed for the southern sea, Never a hook nor a bait he took For the deadly fishery; But the staunchest man at the straining rope In the northerner was he. On the bloody deck of the Hartford The azure charm pricked on his arm With a life in Mobile Bay. SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA. BY SAMUEL H. M. BYERS. [General Sherman, in a recent conversation with the editor of this collection, declared that it was this poem with its phrase, "march to the sea," that threw a glamour of romance over the campaign which it celebrates. Said General Sherman: "The thing was nothing more or less than a change of base, an operation perfectly familiar to every military man, but a poet got hold of it, gave it the captivating label, 'The March to the Sea,' and the unmilitary public made a romance out of it." It may be remarked that the General's modesty overlooks the important fact that the romance lay really in his own deed of derring-do; the poet merely recorded it, or at most interpreted it to the popular intelligence. The glory of the great campaign was Sherman's and his army's; the joy of celebrating it was the poet's; the admiring memory of it is the people's.-EDITOR.] SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA. OU UR camp-fires shone bright on the mountain As we stood by our guns in the morning, Then cheer upon cheer for bold Sherman That came from the lips of the men ; More bright in their splendor would be, And that blessings from Northland would greet us When Sherman marched down to the sea. Then forward, boys! forward to battle! We stormed the wild hills of Resaca, Then Kenesaw, dark in its glory, Frowned down on the flag of the free, But the East and the West bore our standard And Sherman marched on to the sea. Still onward we pressed till our banners The soil where the traitor flag falls. Yet we twined them a wreath of the laurel As Sherman marched down to the sea. Oh, proud was our army that morning, And the stars in our banner shone brighter |