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Page 93
IX.
A Serpent lie from every mouth,
Coils outward ever,--sworn to bless;
Yet, through the gardens of the South,
Still spreading evils numberless,
By locust swarms the fields are swept,
By frenzied hands the dwelling flames,
And virgin beds, where Beauty slept,
Polluted blush, from worst of shames.
X.
The Dragon, chain'd for thousand years,
Hath burst his bonds and rages free;--
Yet, patience, brethren, stay your fears;--
Loosed for "a little season,"[1] he
Will soon, beneath th' Ithuriel sword,
Of heavenly judgment, crush'd and driven,
Yield to the vengeance of the Lord,
And crouch beneath the wrath of Heaven!
XI.
"A little season," and the Peace,
That now is foremost in your prayers,
Shall crown your harvest with increase,
And bless with smiles the home of tears;
Your wounds be healed; your noble sons,
Unhurt, unmutilated--free--
Shall limber up their conquering guns,
In triumph grand of Liberty!
XII.
A few more hours of mortal strife,--
Of faith and patience, working still,
In struggle for the immortal life,
With all their soul, and strength, and will;
And, in the favor of the Lord,
And powerful grown by heavenly aid,
Your roof trees all shall be restored,
And ye shall triumph in their shade.
[1] "1. And I saw an Angel come down from Heaven, having the key of the
bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
"2. And he laid hold on the Dragon, that Old Serpent, which is the Devil
and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.
"And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal
upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand
years should be fulfilled; and _after that he must be loosed a little
season_."--Rev. xx., v. 1-3.
The Unknown Dead.
By Henry Timrod.
The rain is plashing on my sill,
But all the winds of Heaven are still;
And so, it falls with that dull sound
Which thrills us in the churchyard ground,
When the first spadeful drops like lead
Upon the coffin of the dead.
Beyond my streaming window-pane,
I cannot see the neighboring vane,
Yet from its old familiar tower
The bell comes, muffled, through the shower.
What strange and unsuspected link
Of feeling touched has made me think--
While with a vacant soul and eye
I watch that gray and stony sky--
Of nameless graves on battle plains,
Washed by a single winter's rains,
Where, some beneath Virginian hills,
And some by green Atlantic rills,
Some by the waters of the West,
A myriad unknown heroes rest?
Ah! not the chiefs who, dying, see
Their flags in front of victory,
Or, at their life-blood's noblest cost
Pay for a battle nobly lost,
Claim from their monumental beds
The bitterest tears a nation sheds.
Beneath yon lonely mound--the spot,
By all save some fond few forgot--
Lie the true martyrs of the fight,
Which strikes for freedom and for right.
Of them, their patriot zeal and pride,
The lofty faith that with them died,
No grateful page shall further tell
Than that so many bravely fell;
And we can only dimly guess
What worlds of all this world's distress,
What utter woe, despair, and dearth,
Their fate has brought to many a hearth.
Just such a sky as this should weep
Above them, always, where they sleep;
Yet, haply, at this very hour,
Their graves are like a lover's bower;
And Nature's self, with eyes unwet,
Oblivious of the crimson debt
To which she owes her April grace,
Laughs gayly o'er their burial place.
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