"The winds have tied the drifted snow

Around the face and chin; and lo,

The sceptred Giants come and go,

And shake their shadowy crowns and say: 'We always fear'd it would be so!'

"She came of an heroic race:

A giant's strength, a maiden's grace,
Like two in one seem to embrace,

And match, and blend, and thorough-blend, in her colossal form and face.

"Where can her dazzling falchion be?
One hand is fallen in the sea;

The Gulf Stream drifts it far and free;

And in that hand her shining brand gleams from the depths resplendently.

"And by the other, in its rest,
The starry banner of the West
Is clasp'd forever to her breast;

And of her silver helmet, lo! a soaring eagle is the crest.

"And on her brow, a soften'd light,

As of a star conceal'd from sight
By some thin veil of fleecy white,

Or of the rising moon behind the rainy vapors of the night.
"The Sisterhood that was so sweet,

The Starry System sphered complete,

Which the mazed Orient used to greet,

The Four-and-Thirty fallen Stars glimmer and glitter at her feet.

For panoply and coronal

The mighty Immemorial,

And everlasting Canopy and Starry Arch and Shield of all.

II

“Three cold, bright moons have march'd and wheel'd And the white cerement that reveal'd

A Figure stretch'd upon a Shield,

Is turned to verdure; and the land is now one mighty battle

field.

"And lo! the children which she bred,
And more than all else cherished,

To make them true in heart and head,

Stand face to face, as mortal foes, with their swords cross'd

above the dead.

"Each hath a mighty stroke and stride :

One true

the more that he is tried;

The other dark and evil-eyed;

And by the hand of one of them, his own dear Mother surely

died!

"A stealthy step, a gleam of hell, —

It is the simple truth to tell,

The Son stabb'd and the Mother fell:

And so she lies, all mute and pale, and pure and irreproachable!

"And then the battle-trumpet blew ;

And the true brother sprang and drew
His blade to smite the traitor through;

And so they clash'd above the bier, and the Night sweated bloody dew.

"And all their children, far and wide,

That are so greatly multiplied,

Rise up in frenzy and divide;

And choosing each whom he will serve, unsheath the sword and take their side.

"And in the low sun's bloodshot rays,
Portentous of the coming days,

The two great Oceans blush and blaze,

With the emergent continent between them, wrapt in crimson

haze.

"Now whichsoever stand or fall,
As God is great, and man is small,
The truth shall triumph over all :

Forever and forevermore, the Truth shall triumph over all!

III

"I see the champion sword-strokes flash;

I see them fall and hear them clash ;

I hear the murderous engines crash ;

I see a brother stoop to loose a foeman-brother's bloody sash.

"I see the torn and mangled corse,

The dead and dying heap'd in scores,
The headless rider by his horse,

The wounded captive bayoneted through and through without

remorse.

"I hear the dying sufferer cry,

With his crush'd face turn'd to the sky;

I see him crawl in agony

To the foul pool, and bow his head into the bloody slime, and

die.

"I see the assassin crouch and fire;
I see his victim fall — expire ;

I see the murderer creeping nigher

To strip the dead. He turns the head the face! The son beholds his sire!

"I hear the curses and the thanks;
I see the mad charge on the flanks,
The rents, the gaps, the broken ranks,

The vanquished squadrons driven headlong down the river's bridgeless banks.

"I see the death-gripe on the plain,

The grappling monsters on the main,
The tens of thousands that are slain,

And all the speechless suffering and agony of heart and brain. "I see the dark and bloody spots,

The crowded rooms and crowded cots,
The bleaching bones, the battle blots,-

And writ on many a nameless grave, a legend of forget-me-nots. "I see the gorgèd prison-den,

The dead-line and the pent-up pen,

The thousands quarter'd in the fen,

The living-deaths of skin and bone that were the goodly shapes

of men.

"And still the bloody dew must fall!

And His great Darkness with the Pall
Of His dread Judgment cover all,

Till the Dead Nation rise transformed by Truth to triumph over all!

Thus saith the Keeper of the Key,

And the Great Seal of Destiny,

Whose eye is the blue canopy,

And leaves the Pall of His great Darkness over all the Land

and Sea.

BYRON FORCEYTHE WILLSON.

APOCALYPSE *

STRAIGHT to his heart the bullet crush'd;
Down from his breast the red blood gush'd,

And o'er his face a glory rush'd.

A sudden spasm shook his frame,
And in his ears there went and came

A sound as of devouring flame.

*Private Arthur Ladd, Sixth Mass. Vols., killed in the attack of the Baltimore mob upon his regiment, April 19, 1861, was the first life sacrificed to the war.

Which in a moment ceased, and then
The great light clasped his brows again,
So that they shone like Stephen's when

Saul stood apart a little space

And shook with shuddering awe to trace
God's splendors settling o'er his face.

Thus, like a king, erect in pride,

Raising clean hands toward heaven, he cried :

All hail the Stars and Stripes!" and died.

Died grandly. But before he fell
(O blessedness ineffable !)
Vision apocalyptical

Was granted to him, and his eyes,
All radiant with glad surprise,

Looked forward through the Centuries,

And saw the seeds which sages cast
In the world's soil in cycles past,
Spring up and blossom at the last;

Saw how the souls of men had grown,
And where the scythes of Truth had mown
Clear space for Liberty's white throne;

Saw how, by sorrow tried and proved,
The blackening stains had been removed
Forever from the land he loved;

Saw Treason crushed and Freedom crowned,
And clamorous Faction, gagged and bound,
Gasping its life out on the ground.

With far-off vision gazing clear
Beyond this gloomy atmosphere

Which shuts us in with doubt and fear,

He marking how her high increase
Ran greatening in perpetual lease
Through balmy years of odorous Peace-

Greeted in one transcendent cry
Of intense, passionate ecstasy
The sight which thrilled him utterly;

Saluting with most proud disdain
Of murder and of mortal pain,
The vision which shall be again!

So, lifted with prophetic pride,

Raised conquering hands toward heaven and cried : "All hail the Stars and Stripes ! ” and died.

RICHARD REALF.

VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY

THE knightliest of the knightly race
That, since the days of old,
Have kept the lamp of chivalry

Alight in hearts of gold;

The kindliest of the kindly band

That, rarely hating 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,

Whose beauty stars the earth,

And lights the hearths of happy homes

With loveliness and worth.

We thought they slept ! - the sons who kept
The names of noble sires,

And slumbered while the darkness crept
Around their vigil fires;

But aye the Golden Horseshoe knights
Their old Dominion keep,

Whose foes have found enchanted ground,
But not a knight asleep.

FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR.

UNMANIFEST DESTINY
To what new fates, my country, far
And unforeseen of foe or friend,
Beneath what unexpected star,
Compelled to what unchosen end,
Across the sea that knows no beach
The Admiral of Nations guides
Thy blind obedient keels to reach
The harbor where thy future rides!

The guns that spoke at Lexington
Knew not that God was planning then

The trumpet word of Jefferson

To bugle forth the rights of men.