Out in the bridal robe of white Sweet hawthorn decks the lane; Hark! that sad minor strain ! I think, as I see the whitening bloom But the chill of an icy shroud— There's a whisper of crocus and hyacinth Dead babes on the mother-earth. Where the dear warm blood flowed out so free, Did the wild wind steal its moans That fill me with anguish of unshed tears? O spirit of sorrow, Banshee white! Coldness and darkness wander with me, * Pale woe her watch must keep. In the long, long march, did he track the snow Was his dear face cold in the pelting rain, Barefoot through the blinding sleet! Was he pale from the pain, the hunger pain, Where, where is the sword whose gleaming blade Flashed up against the sky, And wrote in a broad white quivering line Ho! Walthalls's men, and Brantley's line! His murderers bite the dust! "Shot through the heart!" My own stands still, With its breaking, breaking pain; All, all grows dark, but the words of fire Rent heart and aching brain. Who sprang to his side in the foremost ranks, To smooth from his brow the dark damp hair, Who kissed his dear lips for me? Kind stranger, guard that sacred spot; His name thou'lt find on rude head-board, God bless that soldier's hand! We've watched and nursed your dying ones, That holy mound of ours? Oh, shield that grave of ours! Oh, the parching thirst and numbing cold Rest on the golden shore Fair, God-lit, healing shore. * * * * In his threadbare suit, with its honor-stains, Did they fold our flag, with its spotless stars, Oh, say that I'm mad or dreaming— Then the Summer woods of the bright Southland Then the hills may don their arabesque, While the rose on the cheek of the blushing year The roses have died on mine. No; the Spring will pass, and Summer fruit, Dark Winter the whole year round! Snow shrouds our darling dead ! With its Christmas berries swung; They seem but drops of human blood From human anguish wrung! O God, our hearts are wrung! "Killed outright!"--Oh, wretched dream! When, when shall I awake? If the words ring on, thus wildly on, My tortured heart must break!— God help me ere it break! INA MARIE PORTER. SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA. · [This popular song was written while its author, Adjutant Byers, of the Fifth Iowa Regiment, was a prisoner at Columbia, S. C. Of its origin he says: "There are hundreds of old comrades who remember the afternoon in the prison-pen at Columbia when our glee club said, Now we are going to sing something about Billy Sherman'!' and with what rousing cheers the song and the writer were welcomed. The rebel officers ran in to see what was loose among the prisoners, and they, too, had music in their souls, and said if the glee club would sing Dixie Land' they might sing Sherman's March to the Sea' also; and so for weeks our glee club-the only sunshine we had in prison-made the old barrack walls ring with songs of the blue and the gray. The piece attracted the attention of General Sherman, who sent for the author and attached him to his staff.] OUR camp-fires shone bright on the mountain As we stood by our guns in the morning, Then cheer upon cheer for bold Sherman That came from the lips of the men ; For we knew that the stars in our banner Then forward, boys! forward to battle! Frowned down on the flag of the free; But the East and the West bore our standard, Still onward we pressed, till our banners Oh, proud was our army that morning, And the stars in our banner shone brighter SONG OF SHERMAN'S ARMY. A PILLAR of fire by night, A pillar of smoke by day, Some hours of march--then a halt to fight, And so we hold our way; Some hours of march-then a halt to fight, As on we hold our way. Over mountain and plain and stream, With our arms aflash in the morning beam, We hold our festal way; With our arms aflash in the morning beam, |