| |
| TWO armies covered hill and plain, | |
| Where Rappahannock’s waters | |
| Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain | |
| Of battle’s recent slaughters. | |
| |
| The summer clouds lay pitched like tents | 5 |
| In meads of heavenly azure; | |
| And each dread gun of the elements | |
| Slept in its embrasure. | |
| |
| The breeze so softly blew, it made | |
| No forest leaf to quiver, | 10 |
| And the smoke of the random cannonade | |
| Rolled slowly from the river. | |
| |
| And now, where circling hills looked down | |
| With cannon grimly planted, | |
| O’er listless camp and silent town | 15 |
| The golden sunset slanted. | |
| |
| When on the fervid air there came | |
| A strain—now rich, now tender; | |
| The music seemed itself aflame | |
| With day’s departing splendor. | 20 |
| |
| A Federal band, which, eve and morn, | |
| Played measures brave and nimble, | |
| Had just struck up, with flute and horn | |
| And lively clash of cymbal. | |
| |
| Down flocked the soldiers to the banks, | 25 |
| Till, margined by its pebbles, | |
| One wooded shore was blue with “Yanks,” | |
| And one was gray with “Rebels.” | |
| |
| Then all was still, and then the band, | |
| With movements light and tricksy, | 30 |
| Made stream and forest, hill and strand, | |
| Reverberate with “Dixie.” | |
| |
| The conscious stream with burnished glow | |
| Went proudly o’er its pebbles, | |
| But thrilled throughout its deepest flow | 35 |
| With yelling of the Rebels. | |
| |
| Again a pause, and then again | |
| The trumpets pealed sonorous, | |
| And “Yankee Doodle” was the strain | |
| To which the shore gave chorus. | 40 |
| |
| The laughing ripple shoreward flew, | |
| To kiss the shining pebbles; | |
| Loud shrieked the swarming Boys in Blue | |
| Defiance to the Rebels. | |
| |
| And yet once more the bugle sang | 45 |
| Above the stormy riot; | |
| No shout upon the evening rang— | |
| There reigned a holy quiet. | |
| |
| The sad, slow stream its noiseless flood | |
| Poured o’er the glistening pebbles; | 50 |
| All silent now the Yankees stood, | |
| And silent stood the Rebels. | |
| |
| No unresponsive soul had heard | |
| That plaintive note’s appealing, | |
| So deeply “Home, Sweet Home” had stirred | 55 |
| The hidden fount of feeling. | |
| |
| Or Blue, or Gray, the soldier sees, | |
| As by the wand of fairy, | |
| The cottage ’neath the live-oak trees, | |
| The cabin by the prairie. | 60 |
| |
| Or cold, or warm, his native skies, | |
| Bend in their beauty o’er him; | |
| Seen through the tear-mist in his eyes, | |
| His loved ones stand before him. | |
| |
| As fades the iris after rain | 65 |
| In April’s tearful weather, | |
| The vision vanished, as the strain | |
| And daylight died together. | |
| |
| But memory, waked by music’s art, | |
| Expressed in simplest numbers, | 70 |
| Subdued the sternest Yankee’s heart, | |
| Made light the Rebel’s slumbers. | |
| |
| And fair the form of Music shines, | |
| That bright celestial creature, | |
| Who still, ’mid war’s embattled lines, | 75 |
| Gave this one touch of Nature. | |
| |
