Part 6

Of what avail, if thus we err, Our gifts of frankincense and myrrh, Prayers, mummery, and holy water, To cleanse the air from smell of slaughter, And psalms, and organ chants sonorous, With all our damning guilt before us? Has sharp remorse no power to move The stronger agony of love In breasts whose suffering finds at last The madness of the conflict past, Which, having ’scaped the shock of steel In battle’s fearful expiation, Beside the slain at last shall feel The glow of reconciliation, Over the tombs which now conceal The flower and glory of the nation?

Come where the slain, all pale and cold, Sleep ’neath the all-concealing mold, While evening’s melancholy breeze With sad voice in the forest lingers, Thrumming the spray of whispering trees Like chords beneath a harper’s fingers, In fitful, sobbing, plaintive tone, Thrilling the pained air with its moan, And wailing down the leafless aisles with low and dying groan.

Let pity, warm as Love’s caress, Strew violets in tenderness Above our kinsmen dead; And myrtles clustering o’er their tomb, Enfold in robes of purple bloom Their consecrated bed; And let the fresh-winged morning air Now waft to heaven the nation’s prayer To spare the avenging rod, And weld the golden chain of love Between all human hearts above And all beneath the sod.

No more; no more; for overhead The Christmas star renews its brightness; Its beams revivify the dead In garments of celestial whiteness; By our sad fate, the phantoms say, By all the griefs that wring the living, Cast each embittered thought away, And join the people by forgiving. Armies of slaughtered men have fed The Moloch fires of expiation, Whose blood, like Abel’s madly shed, Joins in the fervent invocation.

Plead ye for peace? Expect it where Justice is equal as the air And vote and count are just and fair, Nor seek the fruitful olive tree, On the volcano’s breast of snow, While the flame-waved Vesuvian sea Consumes the sapless earth below.

Redeemed from violence and fraud, All hail the resurrected nation; The Rights of Man shall be its broad, Deep and immovable foundation, And the Philanthropy of God The corner-stone of Restoration.

OPHELIA

Gaily she struck the sweet guitar, The maiden fair as a beautiful star; And her soft voice fell on charmed ears Like a seraph’s song from the upper spheres Joyous and blithe is the song she sings, As the morning lark on his heavenward wings; Little the list’ners dream that rest Never again shall dwell in her breast; Little they dream, while that strain she is waking That her heart with a secret grief is breaking.

Sweet were the words from her lips that fell, As the mocking-bird’s song in the hazel dell; Like the honey of Hybla her words were fraught With sweets from the choicest flowers sought; Gloom from her beaming presence fled, Mirth and joy were around her shed; Little they know of the poisoned dart That rankles deep in her bleeding heart; Little they know that her beaming eye Tells but a hollow mockery.

Bright were the jewels that flashed on her brow As the gleam of the stars on the mountain snow, And the trembling lustre of costly pearls Beams through the waves of her golden curls, As with queenly step she passes along, The loveliest one of that beautiful throng; But her heart with inward grief is bowed, And her cheek is as pale as the dead man’s shroud, And tears will start in her orbs of blue, Like a rose that weepeth with morning dew.

A gentle heart that she once had known Had throbbed for her and for her alone. High and holy in him was her trust-- Alas! it has turned to ashes and dust! Can she her sacred vows recall, Can she, can she forget them all? Never! although with an aching breast She ever obeys the stern behest, Yielding with smiles to her bitter lot; Meekly yielding and murmuring not; The memory of departed hours Shall weave her garland of withered flowers, But the hope that cheered her soul is flown, And she moves ’mid the throng, alone, alone. Her lips may smile, but her eye is chill, And her laugh may ring, but her heart is still; Her bosom is now the canker’s prey-- She is passing away, passing away.

DEATH OF THE SEASONS.

Last night pealed out the dark Death-angel’s cry-- “Another year is gone!”--and from the sky A myriad of voices, like a river, Reëchoed “Gone! forever and forever!” The deep roll of the night-wind’s muffled drum Mourned for the dead whose lips are pale and dumb Within whose pulseless and unconscious breast Reigns the nepenthe of a dreamless rest.

Scatter sweet flowers on the season’s tomb, For oh, they perished in their early bloom! And o’er their dust this requiem be sung-- “Weep not, for Heaven’s best favorites die young”

Oh, Spring was very beautiful and gay When April mild and rosy-fingered May Rambled among the many babbling brooks And gathered wild flowers in their shady nooks, And waving them in gladness in the air, Scattered their fragrant dew-drops everywhere Beneath whose silver spray the delicate bloom Of Flora filled the air with rich perfume.

Slender and gentle and surpassing fair Was blue-eyed Summer with her golden hair, Sweet-voiced as is the murmur of a dove, Whilst every look was eloquent with love. Where blooms the wild rose by the mountain spring, In whose clear waves the robin dips his wing, Where clustering berries tempt the longing eyes Like the forbidden fruit of Paradise, And the sweet mocking-bird, in carol gay, Enchants the listener with his wondrous lay-- There, in the silence of her shady bowers, The Summer genius passed the dreamy hours; Death came and laid his hand upon her brow, And in eternal night she sleepeth now.

Next Autumn came in robe of gorgeous dyes And stately step and melancholy eyes-- In mien and look like discrowned Antoinette A queen--although the Bourbon star had set-- Beholding with a proud, unwavering faith The scaffold and the officers of death, Mourning--not her own early doom, for she Knew well the hollowness of majesty-- But grieving that the beautiful and gay In her bright train were doomed to pass away. So Autumn died, but oh, her couch of death Was balmy with the jasmine’s odorous breath, And every wind-harp breathed its hollow moan For the sweet soul that had forever flown.

But lo! whilst mourning for the seasons fled, A phœnix from the ashes of the dead Rises in triumph, and the new-born year Round Time’s vast orb begins his swift career. The rising sunbeams herald his advance, And break on every hill a golden lance; Heaven plants her banners at the Eastern gate, To greet the monarch as he comes in state, And the loud harps of ocean and of earth Resound in strains of revelry and mirth.

Welcome to earth, thou youngest child of Time, Unwarped by wrong, unspotted by a crime! Oh, may the blooming vigor of thy youth Ripen in wisdom, purity and truth. Spare in thy flight the innocent and gay And scatter pleasure’s garlands in their way; Repress the insolence of lawless might, And make the wrong submissive to the right; Uphold the patriot and strike down the hand That waves the traitor’s sword or treason’s brand And with the hand of charity redress Each form of human woe and wretchedness, So that the annals of all coming time Shall write thee as the Golden Age sublime.

NEW YEAR ODE, 1861.

[CARRIERS’ ADDRESS FOR THE LOUISVILLE JOURNAL.]

Oh, infant year, whose newborn limbs are swathed And cradled in convulsion--Oh, dread Heaven, Unsealing o’er this land of many woes The Apocalyptic vials--Oh, my torn And bleeding country, by thy sons deflowered And stricken of thy God--how shall I sing A festal anthem on a broken lyre-- To ears made dull by sorrow?

From her dreams, With music lulled, all-queenly, and perfumed With odors from the Summer’s lips distilled, The startled nation woke--awoke to hear Rebellion’s war-cries in her citadel, By dark and frenzied sentinels invoked-- Singing her dirge, like the volcanic bass Of Ætna’s organ chiming with the sea When groans the Titan in immortal pangs-- The trepidation of conflicting hosts, Mixed with the wild alarm of clamorous bells The strife--the shout--the wailing of despair.

Time, by whose hands the mouldering dust of death Is shovelled in the vaults of coffined realms, What Nemesis insatiate still inspires The suicide of Empires? In her breast, Greece nursed the serpent faction, with her blood, That stung her to the heart. Rebellion’s steel Pierced the fair bosom of imperial Rome By foreign foes unconquered; and the land Of God’s own people drank the fatal cup Which dark dissension pressed upon her lips.

As midnight’s bell proclaims with double tongue One year departed and another born, Swift throng around me with imperial mien And godlike brow, and eyes of sad reproach, As angels look in sorrow, the great dead

Who walked Mount Vernon’s shades and Marshfield’s plains, And Monticello’s height, and Ashland’s groves Still vocal with unearthly eloquence, Statesmen and Chiefs who loved their native land And led her up to fame. With solemn air And thrilling voice they point to freedom’s flag War-rent and laced with sacrificial blood, By noble martyrs shed; and thus they speak-- “O sons once named Americans, but now The world-mocked orphans of a nameless land, Why rush ye to destruction? Happier far Than ye the tawny tribes your fathers drove From the primeval forest--the red chiefs Who bravely perished on their hunting-grounds, Or passing o’er the mountains of the West, Went down in gloom, like nature’s final sun, To rise no more forever. Better thus Than live the foul dishonor of your sires, Whose progeny like Lucifer of old Rebelled against the power that made them Gods, And perished in their treason. Come, ye winds, Swift-winged couriers of the tropic sky, Heralds of death and ruin--come, ye fires That in volcanic caverns ever burn, And crush pale cities in your molten jaws-- Come, burning plagues, and ye tempestuous waves, Who strangle navies in your watery arms-- Earthquakes and lightning-strokes, all earthly ills Which Heaven inflicts, and trembling men abhor-- Fell bolts in God’s red armory of wrath, With all your terrors in one stroke combined, Come; and in mercy blast the land with ruin Rather than we should see Columbia’s plains Drenched in a crimson sea of fratricide, Lust, rapine, malice, treachery, revenge, The tall and crowning Teneriffe of crime.”

I hear a passing bell--the muffled drum Rolls its sepulchral echoes on the night Which spreads across the sky the starless pall Of desolation. And upon my ear Falls the wild burden of a dismal song Like that of mocking fiends in revelry.

THE DISUNION BANNER.

Fiends who in the lurid gloom Of Hell do ply the fatal loom, Weave a banner of despair For Columbia’s tainted air, Like the boding raven’s wing All the land o’ershadowing. In the murky woof embroider Darkness, death, and Hell’s disorder.

On the fatal standard show Every form of guilt and woe-- Murder drinking deep of blood, Rolling round him like a flood, All the fetid gall that drips From the land’s infected lips, In the murky woof embroider Darkness, death, and Hell’s disorder.

Weave ye in the magic loom Piles of slain without a tomb, Cities lit with midnight fires, Crashing walls and toppling spires, Famine’s sunken, ghastly cheek, Outraged woman’s helpless shriek, Hoary age and infancy Plunged in one wide misery; In the murky woof embroider Darkness, death, and Hell’s disorder.

Let the banner’s fold be bound With a fiery serpent round; Eden’s destroyer shall recall The new temptation, sin, and fall. We have changed the stripes of flame To the burning blush of shame, And the streaks of spotless white To the pallor of affright, And the stars which blazoned all To Wormwood in its endless fall.

The song of treason ceased--the phantoms fled, And as I mused in the dark bitterness Of grief to this sad prophecy of woe, I heard a sound, as when the ocean moves His moist battalions to the tempest’s march, To storm the fortress of the rocky isles, And hosts innumerable thronged around In panoply of war. From every height And every valley rolled the martial drum, And bugles calling to the gory charge The loyal and the bold, while streamed on high Gay banners glittering with the hues of heaven. “We come, oh, bleeding country,” was their cry, “To beat aside the parricidal steel, And shield the snowy breast that gave us life.”

New England’s seamen swelled the rallying cry Along the coasts; the Middle States replied From thronging marts; the echoes leaped along The Mississippi Valley, whose vast floods Throb like the pulses of the Nation’s heart, And pale Virginia, all besprinkled now With War’s red baptism, to Kentucky spoke; Kentucky, tried but faithful unto death, To sad Missouri called; Missouri passed The kindling watchword to the vast Northwest, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Who louder sang than Niagara’s roar To the unconquered heights of Tennessee; Hoarse echoes, like the low sepulchral moan Of subterranean fires, disturbed the Gulf-- The bleeding Gulf betrayed and overawed-- Then swelling loud as an Archangel’s trump, Or shrill winds piping o’er the stormy flood, It thundered back from far Pacific’s coast.

Come to the tombs by mourning millions thronged Beneath the oak of weeping. Glorious dead, Fame’s cemetery holds no hero dust More dearly honored in sublime repose. Pale ashes, with a nation’s tears bedewed, And fanned by sighs as numerous as the winds, The laurels that you nurture shall be green And bloom forever round the precious urns Of Baker and Lyon. Fortune smiled Upon them, casting from her ample lap, Her lavish stores of fame and wealth and ease, And wooed them to repose. Though sweet her song, She sang unheeded. Honor, fortune, life They offered freely on their country’s shrine, In the red heat and fury of the fight, Deeming the dearest jewels of the world Were nought when weighed against the nation’s life.

DIRGE.

He who led our faltering ranks Up the ambuscaded banks-- He who poured his heart’s red rain Over Springfield’s stormy plain, Heeding not the volleys deadly Nor the life’s blood running redly, Cold in death shall lead no more Where our country’s eagles soar.

Such, oh War, thy fearful pleasure, Priceless blood and costliest treasure, Still the victims whom thou smitest Are the loveliest and the brightest. But the martyrs shall be glorious When our flag returns victorious; Death, who seals such patriot eyes, Opens them in Paradise.

As wistfully I gazed upon their graves A vision passed before me. On a mount That glowed with light ineffable appeared The New Year, in imperial garments clad, Erect and tall and God-like in his mien, With strength immortal in his manly limbs And hope and courage beaming from his eyes. And lo, swift breaking from the clouds, he saw Coming in splendor like the morning sun, The reunited Empire of the West, Swelled on the ear the ever-murmuring hu Of populous cities on unnumbered streams, And marts of commerce by a hundred lakes. The teeming fields, with varied harvests, waved, And tinkling bells on distant hills revived Sweet memories of Arcadia’s pastoral days. Fair science led her train by every grove And hill and stream, and pure religion filled Her solemn temples with perpetual hymns And fervent supplication to her God. And from above the shades of years departed Sang with a voice that filled the firmament: “Hail, New Year, hail the noblest child of Time; The Power which brought the fathers o’er the flood Has saved the offspring from the sevenfold fire. A Union healed shall date its life from thee, Redemption’s golden era. From its shield No star shall vanish in forlorn eclipse, Nor exiled Pleiad chant in skies remote Her solitary song, nor sundered be The marriage bond of States, by law confirmed And the eternal oracles of God.”

MONODY

ON THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

[Read at a Memorial Meeting, Nashville, held at the State House, April 16, 1865. Governor Brownlow delivered the address.]

Soft breathe the vernal winds, the sky is fair, And April’s fragrance scents the dewy air. Yon Heaven looks down on earth with eyes as mild As a young mother’s on her sleeping child, Jealous lest aught should break her infant’s calm, And lulling its soft slumbers with a psalm. So soft, so holy, comes the forest hymn, From yon far hill-tops, misty, blue and dim, While war’s discordant tumult seems to cease In the sweet music of returning peace. Yet where the fount of joy in crystal springs, Some venomed asp its rankling poison flings, And where the violets shed their fragrant breath The nightshade pours the blistering dews of death

What bloody phantom with a brow of wrath Stalks in the van of our triumphal path, And o’er our banners flings a funeral veil, Till Heaven grows black and mortal cheeks grow pale? ’Twas in the halls of mirth, a gala night, Bright lamps o’er joyful thousands shed their light, The nation’s Father sat amid the throng, Relaxed his brow and heard the festal song; He dreams not of conspiracy, nor sees Above his head the sword of Damocles; Wide opes the sepulchre its marble jaws, All nature seems to make a breathless pause; The deadly aim is made--the death-shot flies, And Freedom’s martyr passes to the skies.

Oh, Statesman, Hero, Patriot, Friend, and Sire, Now the pale tenant of a funeral pyre, Whose red right hand four years has held the rod, The minister of Freedom and of God, Yet with the rod the blooming olive held, While the dark deluge of rebellion swelled And thundered round our Ark--an Argosy More dear than all the jewels of the sea, And still with outstretched arms essayed to save The shipwrecked seamen from the yawning wave! Thy love was strong as woman’s--who like thee Their interceding angel now shall be?

A genial wit, a homely native sense, Nearer to truth than studied eloquence, A quiet courage to defend the right, And leave to Heaven the issue of the fight; A will of adamant, which seemed to be The very flower of maiden modesty, A conscience, holding truth of greater worth Than all the crowns and treasures of the earth; A love, whose strong affections seemed to bind In one the happiness of all mankind; These were the jewels whose celestial flame Shall burn with quenchless glow round Lincoln’s name, The virtues which shall make his memory dear While Justice reigns in yon eternal sphere.

And millions shall lament, with honest grief, The People’s friend and Freedom’s fallen chief; The huntsman shall forget the eager chase, And pause to wipe his weatherbeaten face, The daring sailor, on the distant sea, Shall shed a teardrop to his memory; The widow’s tears shall quench her cottage fire, The soldier’s orphan moan his second sire. There need no glittering trappings of the tomb, No martial dirge, nor hearse with nodding plume, To tell their grief; but words devoid of art Show how this stroke has pierced the Nation’s heart.

Precious the tears shall be the Nation weeps, And sacred be the sod where Lincoln sleeps. His fame shall be the jewel of the West, Like a rich pearl on Beauty’s throbbing breast. Mourn, O ye Mountains!--altars of the sky-- Fit monuments of him who cannot die; Mourn, loud Atlantic! let thy thunder-dirge Chant the sad requiem with Pacific’s surge. Mourn, O New England! on thy granite base. Mourn, Illinois, thy desolate dwelling-place; Kentucky, mourn! thy second God-like son Sleeps in the dust, life’s duty nobly done; Mourn, Tennessee! The Hero of the Age Sleeps with the Lion of the Hermitage; Chanted the melancholy song shall be, By all thy streams which hasten to the sea, While Nashville’s echoing wall of cedared hills With mournful cadence all the valley fills.

WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY ODE.

[Written for a celebration given by the young ladies of Elder Enos Campbell’s School, Hopkinsville, February 22, 1861.]

Hero, whose ashes sleep By Vernon’s sacred steep, Sire of the free! To-day thy name be blessed North, South, East and West, And swell each patriot’s breast With love to thee.

Through tempests drear and dark The Union’s holy ark Thy hand did guide; The ark which rode the flood Of Revolution’s blood For freedom’s mighty God Was on thy side.

Where’er thy eagles flew The world our glory knew In war and peace. Safe ’neath the fig and vine Our fathers did recline, And field and wave and mine Gave rich increase.

Oh, that to-day might yield Once more the sword and shield Of Washington! Then freedom’s songs sublime Should peal in thrilling chime And, ’til remotest time, The States be one.

TO APRIL.

[DEDICATED TO THE WEATHER BUREAU.]

(Begun April 1.)

Sweet month of blue-eyed violets and fools, I’m glad to see you, dear. Take off your bonnet, While to your praise I pen a flowing sonnet. A thousand misses in the boarding-schools Now do the same on gilt-edged, scented paper, And bite their nails and trim the midnight taper. The clear lake like a polished mirror glows In the seraphic loveliness of morn; The speckled trout leap from their crystal pools, Waking the startled skylark’s mellow horn; On every hand new beauties still are born, Till lingering sunset’s amethystine blaze Illumes the vault of heaven with its far-streaming rays.

(Finished April 10.)