To them that wept and cursed Bull Run,
What was it but despair and shame ?
Who saw behind the cloud the sun?
Who knew that God was in the flame ?

Had not defeat upon defeat,

Disaster on disaster come,
The slave's emancipated feet

Had never marched behind the drum.

There is a Hand that bends our deeds
To mightier issues than we planned;
Each son that triumphs, each that bleeds,
My country, serves Its dark command.
I do not know beneath what sky
Nor on what seas shall be thy fate;

I only know it shall be high,

I only know it shall be great.

RICHARD HOVEY.

WE ARE OUR FATHERS' SONS

WE are our fathers' sons: let those who lead us know!

'T was only yesterday sick Cuba's cry

Came up the tropic wind, "Now help us, for we die! " Then Alabama heard,

And rising, pale, to Maine and Idaho

Shouted a burning word;

Proud state with proud impassioned state conferred, And at the lifting of a hand sprang forth,

East, west, and south, and north,

Beautiful armies. Oh, by the sweet blood and young

Shed on the awful hill slope at San Juan,

By the unforgotten names of eager boys

Who might have tasted girls' love and been stung
With the old mystic joys

And starry griefs, now the spring nights come on,
But that the heart of youth is generous,—

We charge you, ye who lead us,

Breathe on their chivalry no hint of stain!
Turn not their new-world victories to gain !

One least leaf plucked for chaffer from the bays

Of their dear praise,

One jot of their pure conquest put to hire,
The implacable republic will require;
With clamor, in the glare and gaze of noon,
Or subtly, coming, as a thief at night,
But surely, very surely, slow or soon
That insult deep we deeply will requite.

Tempt not our weakness, our cupidity!
For save we let the island men go free,
Those baffled and dislaurelled ghosts
Will curse us from the lamentable coasts
Where walk the frustrate dead.

The cup of trembling shall be drainèd quite,
Eaten the sour bread of astonishment,

With ashes of the hearth shall be made white
Our hair, and wailing shall be in the tent :
Then on your guiltier head

Shall our intolerable self-disdain

Wreak suddenly its anger and its pain;
For manifest in that disastrous light

We shall discern the right

And do it, tardily.- O ye who lead,

Take heed!

Blindness we may forgive, but baseness we will smite.

WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY.

(An Ode in Time of Hesitation. )

HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

WILLIAM COLLINS.

PART VII

Battle Echoes

Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note?
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath?
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote,
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves? The fires of death,
The bale-fires flash on high: — from rock to rock
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe ;
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,

Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock.

PART VII

BATTLE ECHOES

FLODDEN FIELD

"BUT see! look up! -on Flodden bent
The Scottish foe has fired his tent.'
And sudden as he spoke,
From the sharp ridges of the hill
All downward to the banks of Till
Was wreathed in sable smoke.
Volumed and vast, and rolling far,
The cloud enveloped Scotland's war,
As down the hill they broke;

Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone,
Announced their march; their tread alone,
At times one warning trumpet blown,
At times a stifled hum,

Told England, from his mountain-throne
King James did rushing come.

Scarce could they hear or see their foes,
Until at weapon-point they close;
They close, in clouds of smoke and dust,
With sword-sway and with lance's thrust;
And such a yell was there,

Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if men fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air;

O, life and death were in the shout,
Recoil and rally, charge and rout,
And triumph and despair.

Wide raged the battle on the plain;

Spears shook, and falchions flashed amain;

Fell England's arrow-flight like rain;

Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,

Wild and disorderly.

Amid the scene of tumult, high

They saw the Lord Marmion's falcon fly: And stainless Tunstall's banner white, And Edmund Howard's lion bright,