Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple! Banners, advance with triumph, bend your staves! And from every mountain-peak Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he, And so leap on in light from sea to sea, Till the glad news be sent Across a kindling continent, Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver: "Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her! She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, With room about her hearth for all mankind! No challenge sends she to the elder world, That looked askance and hated; a light scorn Plays o'er her mouth, as round her mighty knees She calls her children back, and waits the morn Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas." Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release! Thy God, in these distempered days, Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways, And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace! Bow down in prayer and praise! No poorest in thy borders but may now Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow. Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, What all our lives to save thee? But ask whatever else, and we will dare! JAMES RUSSELL Lowell. HEROES OF THE SOUTH. [From an Ode on the Valor and Sufferings of Confederate Soldiers.] FOUR deadly years we fought, Ringed by a girdle of unfaltering fire That coiled and hissed in lessening circles nigher. From ocean border to calm inland river, Drenched in a scarlet rain the western lea, Steamed in a mist of slaughter to the skies, Lost her imperial diadem; And wheresoe'er men's troubled vision roamed They viewed MIGHT towering o'er the humbled crest of RIGHT! But for a time, but for a time, O God! The innate forces of our knightly blood Rallied, and by the mount, the fen, the flood, Upraised the tottering standards of our race. O grand Virginia! though thy glittering glaive Lies sullied, shattered in a ruthless grave, How it flashed once! They dug their trenches deep (The implacable foe), they ranged their lines of wrath ; But watchful ever on the imminent path North, South, East, West,-they strove to pierce thy shield: Thou wouldst not yield! Thy fainting limbs and forehead sought the ground; God's ways are marvellous; here we stand to-day O'er flickering fires; but gallant still, and gay romance, Close your blurred Blurred by the dropping of a maudlin tear, That firm but delicate countenance, Distorted sometimes by an awful pang, Borne in meek patience. When the trumpets rang As if the Death that chills him, brow and breast, Were some fond bride who whispered, "Let us rest !" Enough! 'tis over! the last gleam of hope Our buried heroes and their matchless deeds. Meanwhile, upon the nation's broken heart She Oh, dearer far, because outcast and low, yearns above them in her awful woe. PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE, HYMN FOR MEMORIAL-DAY. In seeds of laurel in the earth The blossom of your fame is blown, And somewhere, waiting for its birth, Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years Which keep in trust your storied tombs, Small tributes! but your shades will smile Stoop, angels, hither from the skies! By mourning beauty crowned. HENRY TIMROD. ODE FOR DECORATION-DAY. BRING flowers to strew again With fragrant purple rain Of lilacs, and of roses white and red, The dwellings of our dead, our glorious dead! Let the bells ring a solemn funeral chime, And wild war-music bring anew the time And in their lusty manhood sallied forth, The fortunes of the land, The pride and power and safety of the North! It seems but yesterday The long and proud array But yesterday when even the solid rock Shook as with earthquake shock,— As North and South, like two huge icebergs, ground |