When, by thy bier, in mournful throngs From thy dead breast by ruffians trod VII. Girt with such wills to do and bear, Throw thy bold banner to the breeze! Fling down thy gauntlet to the Huns, Carolina! HENRY TIMROD. VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION. [1862.] 'TIS midnight through my troubled dream Loud wails the tempest's cry; Before the gale, with tattered sail, A ship goes plunging by. What name? Where bound ?-The rocks around Repeat the loud halloo. -The good ship Union, southward bound: God help her and her crew! And is the old flag flying still That o'er your fathers flew, Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark! O landsmen, these are fearful seas -Nay, ruler of the rebel deep, O landsman, art thou false or true? Above thy head our flag shall spread, The bark sails on the Pilgrim's Cape Lies low along her lee, Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes To lock the shore and sea. No treason here! it cost too dear To win this barren realm! And true and free the hands must be Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay That flaunts the fallen stars! But watch the light on yonder height,— Some lingering cloud in mist may shroud Say, pilot, what this fort may be From moated walls that show the sea The breakers roar,-how bears the shore? Ha! say not so! I see its glow! The beacon light that shines by night, The good ship flies to milder skies, The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas What fold is this the sweet winds kiss, Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls, What! heard you not Port Royal's doom? And turned the Beaufort roses' bloom As soon his cursed poison-weed On! on! Pulaski's iron hail The good ship feels the freshening gale,- She rounds the point, she threads the keys The good ship Union's voyage is o'er, And loud and clear with cheer on cheer Hurrah! Hurrah! it shakes the wave, One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY. THE knightliest of the knightly race, Who, since the days of old, Have kept the lamp of chivalry Alight in hearts of gold; The kindliest of the kindly band, Who, rarely hunting ease, Yet rode with Spotswood round the land, And Raleigh round the seas; Who climbed the blue Virginian hills, Against embattled foes, And planted there in valleys fair The lily and the rose; Whose fragrance lives in many lands, And lights the hearts of many homes We thought they slept-the sons who kept And slumbered while the darkness crept But still the Golden Horseshoe knights Whose foes have found enchanted ground, But not a knight asleep. FRANCIS O. TICKNOR. KEARNEY AT SEVEN PINES. [May 31, 1862.] So that soldierly legend is still on its journey— That story of Kearney who knew not to yield! 'Twas the day when with Jameson, fierce Berry, and Birney, Against twenty thousand he rallied the field. Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest, Where the dead lay in clumps through the dwarf oak and pine, Where the aim from the thicket was surest and nighest, No charge like Phil Kearney's along the whole line. When the battle went ill, and the bravest were solemn, Near the dark Seven Pines, where we still held our ground, He rode down the length of the withering column, And his heart at our war-cry leapt up with a bound. |