Like showers of blossoms winds have blown
From flowers of light.
Faster and faster fall the flakes,
On the dim woods and silver lakes,
From stormy skies,
Like soft words on a heart that breaks
When pity sighs.
Ye wailing winds that sadly sigh,
Above the graves where heroes lie,
In sorrow blow,
And build white columns, broad and high,
Of stainless snow.
Let pyramids of spotless hue
Point to the bending arch of blue
Without a stain,
And mark the place where sleep the true,
In battle slain.
Ye unseen sculptors in the air,
Go carve designs in beauty there,
And grave the name
Of BAKER, deep in letters fair
As wreaths of fame.
Go where the bending willow weeps
Over the tomb where ELLSWORTH sleeps,
And softly write
The epitaph that history keeps
In letters white.
Quarry from clouds a shaft to tower
Above the spot where sleeps the flower
Of armies true,
'Till blossoms rise in sun and shower,
Red, white, and blue.
Erhebt euch von der Erde.
YE sleepers, hear the warning,
Lift up your drowsy heads!
Loud snort the steeds "Good-morning!"
Forsake your grassy beds.
The sun-lit steel is gleaming,
Undimmed by battle's breath;
Of garlands men are dreaming,
And thinking, too, of death.
SOLDIER'S MORNING SONG.
Thou gracious God! in kindness
Look down from thy blue tent:
We rushed not forth in blindness,
By Thee to battle sent.
O lift on high before us
Thy truth's all-conquering sign:
The flag of Christ floats o'er us,
The fight, O Lord, is thine!
There yet shall come a morning,
A morning mild and bright;
All good men bless its dawning,
And angels hail the sight.
Soon from her night of sadness
This suffering land shall wake :
O break, thou day of gladness!
Thou day of Freedom break!
Then peals from all the towers!
And peals from every breast!
And peace from stormy hours,
And love and joy and rest!
Then songs of triumph loudly
Shall swell through all the air,
And we'll remember proudly,
We, too, brave blades! were there.
THE cannon's thunders ceased to swell
The whistling shot and shrieking shell
No more with vengeful fury sped
Amid the mangled and the dead.
A sullen silence broods around
For on that dark and bloody ground
The gallant champions of the Free,
Fought, bled, and died for Liberty!
Perchance a brother's fate was sealed,
Upon that solemn battle-field;
And, e'en while in the arms of Death,
A prayer for home his latest breath!
Where raged the fury of the fray
Two warriors, — side by side they lay,
All rent with many a ghastly wound,
Their life-blood bathed the crimson ground.
Fierce foes in life the cannon's roar
Will rouse their bitter ire no more;
They perished in a dread embrace,
With eye to eye, and face to face.
AFTER THE BATTLE.
The war-steed wanders o'er the plain,
Seeking amid the heaps of slain
The form of him, whose hand would guide
His courser through the battle-tide.
The chieftain's sword, grasped in his hand,
Still seemed to beckon on his band;
while rose the joyous cry,
The mighty shout of victory.
Close by yon straggling mass of wall,
A youth was seen to reel and fall,
Where fiercest lead and iron rained
His purple gore his colors stained.
With dying shout he partly rose,
And waved the banner at his foes;
Then strained it to his bloody breast,
Smiled a glad smile and sunk to rest.
O, piteous sight! Yet Freedom gave
A Hero's shroud, a Martyr's grave
To the loved ones, whose blood shall rise.
To Heaven, a holy sacrifice.
Their noble deeds of valor done,
A Patriot's name, immortal, won!
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