THE SOUTHERN AMARANTH.

And dying men upraised their eyes to see
How on the conflict's lowering canopy,
Dawned the first rainbow hues of victory!

Have you watched the condor leap
From his proud Andean rock,
And with hurtling pinions sweep
On the valley-pasturing flock?
Have you watched an Eygre vast
On the rude September blast,
Roll adown with curved crest

O'er the low sands of the West?

O thus and thus they came,

(Four thousand men and more,)
Hearts, faces, all aflame,
And the grandeur of their wrath
Whirled the tyrant from their path,
As the frightened rack is driven,
By the unleashed winds of heaven;
Then, maddened, tossed about
In a reckless, hopeless rout,
The Northern army fled

O'er their dying and their dead;
And the Southern steel flashed out,
And their vengeful points were red
With the hot heart's tide that flow'd
Where they sabred as they rode !
And the news sped on apace,
(Where the rulers in their place
Sat jubilant, one and all,)
Till a shadow seemed to fall
Round their joyance like a pall,
And the inmost Senate hall

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Pealed an echo of disgrace!

At the set of July's sun

They stood quivering and undone

For the eagle standards waned, and the Southern "stars had won!

Thus loomed serene and large

Upon that desperate contest's lurid marge

Our orb of destiny: millions of hearts
Throb with bold exultation,

And there starts

From mountain fastness and from waving plain,
From wooded swamp and mist-encircled main-
From hamlet, city, field,

And the rich midland weald,

The spirit of the antique Hero-Time!
O! 'twas a sight sublime

To watch the upheaval of the popular soul—
The stormy gathering, the majestic roll
Upward of its wild forces, by the awe
Of right and justice steadied into law!
Faith lent our cause its heavenly consecration,
Hope its omnipotent might!

And Fame stood ready, with her flowers of light,
To crown alike the living and the dead,

While in the broadening firmament o'erhead

We seemed to read the fiat of our fate, "Ye are baptized-a nation!

Amongst the freest, free-amongst the mightiest, great!” An ominous hush! and then the scattered clouds

In the dark northern heaven,

(Clouds of a deadliest strife,)

Urged by the poison wind

Of crime and rapine, sullenly combined,

Charged with the bolts of ruin!

What were shrouds

Crimsoned with gore-the widowed spirit riven—
The desecration of God's gift of life,

To that one thought, (three fiendish strands uniting
Hot from a hellish loom,)

"Conquest!" "Revenge!" "Supremacy?"
The blighting

Of untold promises, the grief, the gloom,
The desolate madness, and the anguish blind,
And spreading on and on

From murdered sire to subjugated son,
Were less than nothing to the arrogant pride
Which treaties, compacts, honor, law defied,
And aimed above the wrecks of temple and tower
To rear the symbols of its merciless power!

Four deadly years we fought,

Ringed by a girdle of unfaltering fire,

That coiled and hissed in lessening circles nigher.
Blood dyed the Southern wave:

From ocean border to calm inland river,
There was no pause, no peace, no respite ever.
Blood of our bravest brave

Drenched in a scarlet rain the western lea,
Swelled the hoarse waters of the Tennessee,
Incarnadined the gulfs, the lakes, the rills,
And, from a hundred hills,

Steamed in a mist of slaughter to the skies,
Shutting all hope of heaven from mortal eyes.
The Beaufort blooms were withered on the stem,
Their fair gulf city in a single night

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Lost her imperial diadem;

And whereso'er men's troubled vision sought,

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 flashed it once!

They dug their trenches deep,

(The implacable foe,) they ranged their lines of wrath; But watchful ever on the imminent path, Thy steel-clad genius stood;

North, South, East, West, they strove to pierce thy shield;

Thou would'st not yield!

Until, unconquered, yea, unconquered still—
NATURE'S weakened forces answered not thy WILL,

And gored with wound on wound,

Thy fainting limbs and forehead sought the ground
And with thee, the young nation fell, a pall

Solemn and rayless, covering one and all!

God's ways are marvellous; here we stand to-day
Discrowned, and shorn in wildest disarray,
The mock of earth! yet never shone the sun
On sterner deeds, or nobler victories won.
Not in the field alone; ah, come with me
To the dim bivouac by the winter's sea;
Mark the fair sons of courtly mothers crouch

THE PRIZE POEM.

Over the fires; but gallant still and gay As on some bright parade; or mark the couch.

In reeking hospitals, whereon is laid

The latest scion of a line perchance
Whose veins were royal; close your

blurred romance

Blurred by the dropping of a maudlin tear,
And watch the manhood here;

That firm but delicate countenance,

Distorted sometimes by an awful pang

Borne in meek patience. When the trumpets rang
"To horse!" but yester morn, that ardent boy
Sprang to his charger, thrilled with hope and joy
To the very finger tips; and now he lies,
The shadow deepening in those falcon eyes,
But calm and undismay'd,

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
Hath melted from our mournful horoscope-
Of all, of all bereft ;

Only to us are left

Our buried heroes and their matchless deeds;
These cannot pass; they hold the vital seeds
Which in some far, untracked, unvisioned hour,
May burst to vivid bud and glorious flower.

Meanwhile, upon the nation's broken heart
Her martyrs sleep. O, dearer far to her,
Than if each son a wreathed conqueror,
Rode in triumphant state

The loftiest crest of fate:

O, dearer far, because outcast and low, yearns above them in her awful woe.

She

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