Chapter IV

The bird from out its dream
Breaks with a sudden song,
That stabs the sense like a sudden scream;
The hound the whole night long
Howls to the moonless sky,
So far, and starry, and high.

THE DOUBT.

She sits beside the low window,
In the pleasant evening-time,
With her face turned to the sunset,
Reading a book of rhyme.

And the wine-light of the sunset,
Stolen into the dainty nook,
Where she sits in her sacred beauty,
Lies crimson on the book.

O beautiful eyes so tender,
Brown eyes so tender and dear,
Did you leave your reading a moment
Just now, as I passed near?

Maybe, 'tis the sunset flushes
Her features, so lily-pale;
Maybe, 'tis the lover's passion,
She reads of in the tale.

O darling, and darling, and darling,
If I dared to trust my thought;
If I dared to believe what I must not,
Believe what no one ought,--

We would read together the poem
Of the Love that never died,
The passionate, world-old story
Come true, and glorified.

THE THORN.

"Every Rose, you sang, has its Thorn,
But this has none, I know."
She clasped my rival's Rose
Over her breast of snow.

I bowed to hide my pain,
With a man's unskilful art;
I moved my lips, and could not say
The Thorn was in my heart!

THE MYSTERIES.

Once on my mother's breast, a child, I crept,
Holding my breath;
There, safe and sad, lay shuddering, and wept
At the dark mystery of Death.

Weary and weak, and worn with all unrest,
Spent with the strife,--
O mother, let me weep upon thy breast
At the sad mystery of Life!

THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS.

"The day had been one of dense mists and rains, and much of
General Hooker's battle was fought above the clouds, on the top of
Lookout Mountain."--GENERAL MEIG'S _Report of the Battle before
Chattanooga_.

Where the dews and the rains of heaven have their fountain,
Like its thunder and its lightning our brave burst on the foe,
Up above the clouds on Freedom's Lookout Mountain
Raining life-blood like water on the valleys down below.
O, green be the laurels that grow,
O sweet be the wild-buds that blow,
In the dells of the mountain where the brave are lying low.

Light of our hope and crown of our story,
Bright as sunlight, pure as starlight shall their deeds of daring
glow,
While the day and the night out of heaven shed their glory,
On Freedom's Lookout Mountain whence they routed Freedom's foe.
O, soft be the gales when they go
Through the pines on the summit where they blow,
Chanting solemn music for the souls that passed below.

FOR ONE OF THE KILLED.

There on the field of battle
Lies the young warrior dead:
Who shall speak in the soldier's honor?
How shall his praise be said?

Cannon, there in the battle,
Thundered the soldier's praise,
Hark! how the volumed volleys echo
Down through the far-off days!

Tears for the grief of a father,
For a mother's anguish, tears;
But for him that died in his country's battle,
Glory and endless years.

THE TWO WIVES.

(TO COLONEL J. G. M., IN MEMORY OF THE EVENT BEFORE ATLANTA.)

I.

The colonel rode by his picket-line
In the pleasant morning sun,
That glanced from him far off to shine
On the crouching rebel picket's gun.

II.

From his command the captain strode
Out with a grave salute,
And talked with the colonel as he rode;--
The picket levelled his piece to shoot.

III.

The colonel rode and the captain walked,--
The arm of the picket tired;
Their faces almost touched as they talked,
And, swerved from his aim, the picket fired.

IV.

The captain fell at the horse's feet,
Wounded and hurt to death,
Calling upon a name that was sweet
As God is good, with his dying breath.

V.

And the colonel that leaped from his horse and knelt
To close the eyes so dim,
A high remorse for God's mercy felt,
Knowing the shot was meant for him.