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Brave Forrest, like a lion springs

On the prowling vandal, who comes
With demon hands and hearts so black,
To desolate, pollute and sack
Our firesides and our homes.

With vengeful sting
He's on the wing,

As a torrent he rushes along;

And his warriors brave,

Like old ocean's wave,

Surge over the Hessian throng!

Brave Forrest, like an eagle swoops
Down on the frightened prey;

With glittering sword in noon-day's blaze,
And at dewy eve 'neath the moon-light rays,
Our "war-eagle" leads the way!

Oh, twine his name

With the laurel of fame,
In letters unfading and bright;
Embellish with glory,

Each thread of the story,
That it glow with a living light!

Like the comet's dash,

Thro' the ages 'twill flash
Adown the dim future of Time;
And 'mid heroes of yore,

On Eternity's shore,

It will live in a record sublime!

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, July, 1861.

THE DEVIL'S DELIGHT.

The Devil's Delight.

BY JOHN R. THOMPSON.

205

To breakfast one morning the Devil came down,
By demons and vassals attended;

A headache had darkened his brow with a frown,
From his orgie last night, or the weight of his crown,
But his presence infernal was splendid.

In a robe of red flame was Diavolo dressed,
Without smutch of a cinder to soil it;

Blue blazes enveloped his throat and his chest,
While the tail, tied with ribbons as blue as the vest,
Completed his Majesty's toilet.

No masquerade devil of earth could begin,

With his counterfeit horns and his mock tail,

To look like this model Original Sin,

As of lava and lightning and bitters and gin,
He sat and compounded a cocktail.

But to give, in all conscience, the Devil his due,
He seemed sorrowful rather than irate;
And his Majesty moped all the déjeuner through,
With a twitch, now and then, of the ribbons of blue,
And the look of a penitent pirate;

Then a smile, such as follows some capital joke
Of a Dickens, a Hood, or a Jerrold,
Sweet, playful, and tender, all suddenly broke
O'er the face of Sathanas, as turning he spoke,
"Go, imp! bring the file of the Herald!"

The paper was brought, and Old Nick ran his eye
(In default of debates in the Senate)

Over crimes, there were plenty, of terrible dye,
Over letter and telegram, slander and lie,

And the blatherskite leaders of Bennett.

There were frauds in high places, official deceit;
There were sins, we'll not name them, of ladies;
There were Mexican murders, and murders in Crete,
By the thousand, all manner of villainies sweet,
To the Herald's subscribers in Hades.

But the numberless horrors of every degree
Did not wholly dispel his dejection;
"The Herald's a bore, I'm aweary," says he;
Then uprising, he added, "What's this? TENNESSEE!'
By jingo! here's Brownlow's election!

"Ho, varlet! fill up till the beaker runs o'er!" Cried the Deil, growing joyous and frisky;

A white-hot ferruginous goblet he bore,

And the liquor was vitriol 'straight,' which he swore Was less hurtful than tangle-foot whisky.

"Fill up! let us drink," said the Father of Lies, "To the mortal whose claims are most weighty!" eyes,

And a light diabolic shone out of his

That made the thermometer instantly rise

To fully five thousand and eighty.

"I have knights of the garter and knights of the lance,. Who shall surely hereafter for sin burn;

LIBRAR

OF TH

UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNI

THE DEVIL'S DELIGHT.

I have writers of history, ethics, romance,
In England, America, Germany, France,

And a gay little poet in Swinburne :

"Reformers, who go in for infinite smash;
The widows' and orphans' oppressor;
D.D.'s by the dozen, whose titles are trash,
To be written with two little d's and a dash;
And many a Father Confessor:

207

"And besides all the hypocrites," chuckled the Deil, "Who serve me with Ave and Credo,

I have tyrants that murder, commanders that steal, Dahomey, Mouravieff, Butler, McNeil,

Thad. Stevens, Joe Holt, Escobedo :

"But the man of all others the most to my mind, The dearest terrestrial creature,

Is the blaspheming priest and the tyrant combined,
Who mocks at his Maker and curses his kind,
In the garb of a Methodist preacher.

"And so long as of Darkness I'm absolute Prince,
From his praise there shall be no deduction,
Whose acts a most exquisite malice evince,
And whose government furnishes excellent hints,
Opportunely for HELL'S RECONSTRUCTION."

Then the Fiend, with a laughter no language may tell, Drained his cup, and abasing his crown low, Cried "Hip, Hip, Hurrah!" and a boisterous yell Went round till the nethermost confines of Hell

Re-echoed "Three cheers for old Brownlow!"

The Brare at Home.

THE maid who binds her warrior's sash,
And smiling, all her pain dissembles-
The while, beneath her drooping lash,
One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles-
Though Heaven alone records the tear,
And Fame shall never know her story,
Her heart has shed a drop as dear
As ever dewed the field of glory!

The wife who girds her husband's sword,
'Mid little ones who weep and wonder;
And bravely speaks the cheering word,
What though her heart be rent asunder-
Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear
The bolts of war around him rattle,
Has shed as sacred blood as e'er

Was poured upon the field of battle!

The mother who conceals her grief,

While to her heart her son she presses, Then breathes a few brave words and brief, Kissing the patriot-brow she blessesWith no one but her secret God

To know the pain that weighs upon herSheds holy blood, as e'er the sod

Received on Freedom's field of honor!

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