Under the roses, the Blue;
Under the lilies, the Gray.
So with an equal splendor
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch, impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;-
Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.
So, when the Summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain; -
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day; -
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.
Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;
In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day; -
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.
No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day; -
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.
Coosa, the River, Ga.
THE RIVER COOSA.
ERE Coosa's quiet waters lave
Bright fields that blush when Summer smiles; The sunlight dances on the wave
By white shell beds and marshy isles;
With brimming banks, a kindred stream,
Comb'hee from swamp and forest pours;
They meet, combined, the broader gleam
Of ocean's surge, on Otter's shores;
Light clouds in pointed masses lie
On ether floating far and wide,
Like mountains lifted to the sky,
Of snowy top and dusky side;
Sweeping the river's utmost bound,
Blue sky and emerald marsh between,
Dark lines of forest circle round,
A setting for the pictured scene;
Serenely beautiful it lies,
Breathing an air of Paradise;
So soft, so still, as though a care
Or wrong had never sheltered there;
As though no eye had ever shed
Its tears of anguish for the dead,
Nor heart with sorrow beat or bled.
Fair fields, calm river smooth and bright,
Sweet-breathing flowers and rustling trees,
The honeyed haunts of early bees,
Where birds with morning songs unite
To hail the newly risen light,
What isles of earth are blessed like these?
No age, no blight ye ever know,
O beauteous land and glorious sea! Still shall your breezes softly blow, Your rippling waters ever flow,
Blending their ceaseless harmony, When smiling earth and glowing sky No longer fill the gazer's eye,
Hushed his last pulse of hope and fear;
When passing ages shall efface
All memory of his name and race,
Without a toil, without a care,
Nature in her undying grace,
Each form and show as fair and true,
The sea as bright, the sky as blue,
Shall glow with smiles and blushes here.
Still shall be heard the loon's lone cry
Upon the stream, and to their rest
Long trains of curlews seaward fly,
At sunset, to their sandy nest;
Still joyous from the sparkling tide
With silver sides shall mullets leap;
The eagle soar in wonted pride;
And by their eyrie strong and wide,
On the dry oak beside the deep,
Their watch shall busy ospreys keep;
Still shall the otter win his prize,
Stealthy and dextrous as before;
And marsh-hens fill with startled cries
Or noisy challenges the shore;
And, when from the redundant main
The spring-tide with a bolder sweep
Spreads over all the marshy plain,
Cunning and still shall sit the while
On drifted sedge, a floating isle,
And patiently their vigils keep
Till the short deluge sinks again.
Dismal Swamp, Va.
THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.
THEY tell of a young man who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said, in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses.
"THEY made her a grave, too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true:
And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where, all night long, by a firefly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.
"And her firefly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear;
Long and loving our life shall be,
And I'll hide the maid in a cypress-tree,
When the footstep of Death is near.”
Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds,-
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before.
And, when on the earth he sunk to sleep,
If slumber his eyelids knew,
He lay, where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!
And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake,
And the copper-snake breathed in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
"Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,
And the white canoe of my dear?"
He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface played,
"Welcome," he said, "my dear-one's light!" And the dim shore echoed, for many a night, The name of the death-cold maid.
Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark, Which carried him off from shore;
|