Poems Class of 29 (1851-1889) | Page 5

bosom to feel,
We will cling to it
still like the spokes of a wheel!
And age, as it chills us, shall fasten
the tire
That youth fitted round in his circle of fire!
A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH

1861
JANUARY THIRD)
WE sing "Our Country's" song to-night
With saddened voice and eye;

Her banner droops in clouded light
Beneath the wintry sky.
We'll
pledge her once in golden wine
Before her stars have set
Though
dim one reddening orb may shine,
We have a Country yet.
'T were vain to sigh o'er errors past,
The fault of sires or sons;
Our
soldier heard the threatening blast,
And spiked his useless guns;
He
saw the star-wreathed ensign fall,
By mad invaders torn;
But saw it
from the bastioned wall
That laughed their rage to scorn!
What though their angry cry is flung
Across the howling wave,--

They smite the air with idle tongue
The gathering storm who brave;

Enough of speech! the trumpet rings;
Be silent, patient, calm,--

God help them if the tempest swings
The pine against the palm!
Our toilsome years have made us tame;
Our strength has slept unfelt;

The furnace-fire is slow to flame
That bids our ploughshares melt;

'T is hard to lose the bread they win
In spite of Nature's frowns,--

To drop the iron threads we spin
That weave our web of towns,
To see the rusting turbines stand
Before the emptied flumes,
To
fold the arms that flood the land
With rivers from their looms,--
But
harder still for those who learn
The truth forgot so long;
When once
their slumbering passions burn,
The peaceful are the strong!
The Lord have mercy on the weak,
And calm their frenzied ire,
And
save our brothers ere they shriek,
"We played with Northern fire!"

The eagle hold his mountain height,--
The tiger pace his den
Give
all their country, each his right!

God keep us all! Amen!
J. D. R.

1862
THE friends that are, and friends that were,
What shallow waves
divide!
I miss the form for many a year
Still seated at my side.
I miss him, yet I feel him still
Amidst our faithful band,
As if not
death itself could chill
The warmth of friendship's hand.
His story other lips may tell,--
For me the veil is drawn;
I only
knew he loved me well,
He loved me--and is gone!
VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION
1862
'T is midnight: through my troubled dream
Loud wails the tempest's
cry;
Before the gale, with tattered sail,
A ship goes plunging by.

What name? Where bound?--The rocks around
Repeat the loud
halloo.
--The good ship Union, Southward bound:
God help her and
her crew!
And is the old flag flying still
That o'er your fathers flew,
With
bands of white and rosy light,
And field of starry blue?
--Ay! look
aloft! its folds full oft
Have braved the roaring blast,
And still shall
fly when from the sky
This black typhoon has past!
Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark!
May I thy peril share?
--O
landsman, there are fearful seas
The brave alone may dare!
--Nay,
ruler of the rebel deep,
What matters wind or wave?
The rocks that
wreck your reeling deck
Will leave me naught to save!
O landsman, art thou false or true?
What sign hast thou to show?

--The crimson stains from loyal veins
That hold my heart-blood's
flow
--Enough! what more shall honor claim?
I know the sacred
sign;
Above thy head our flag shall spread,
Our ocean path be thine!

The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's Cape
Lies low along her lee,
Whose
headland crooks its anchor-flukes
To lock the shore and sea.
No
treason here! it cost too dear
To win this barren realm
And true and
free the hands must be
That hold the whaler's helm!
Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay
No rebel cruiser scars;
Her
waters feel no pirate's keel
That flaunts the fallen stars!
--But watch
the light on yonder height,--
Ay, pilot, have a care!
Some lingering
cloud in mist may shroud
The capes of Delaware!
Say, pilot, what this fort may be,
Whose sentinels look down
From
moated walls that show the sea
Their deep embrasures' frown?
The
Rebel host claims all the coast,
But these are friends, we know,

Whose footprints spoil the "sacred soil,"
And this is?--Fort Monroe!
The breakers roar,--how bears the shore?
--The traitorous wreckers'
hands
Have quenched the blaze that poured its rays
Along the
Hatteras sands.
--Ha! say not so! I see its glow!
Again the shoals
display
The beacon light that shines by night,
The Union Stars by
day!
The good ship flies to milder skies,
The wave more gently flows,

The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas
The breath of Beaufort's rose.

What fold is this the sweet winds kiss,
Fair-striped and
many-starred,
Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls,
The twins
of Beauregard?
What! heard you not Port Royal's doom?
How the black war-ships
came
And turned the Beaufort roses' bloom
To redder wreaths of
flame?
How from Rebellion's broken reed

We saw his emblem fall,

As soon his cursed poison-weed
Shall drop from Sumter's wall?
On! on! Pulaski's iron hail
Falls harmless on Tybee!
The good ship
feels the freshening gales,
She strikes the open sea;
She rounds the

point, she threads the keys
That guard the Land of Flowers,
And
rides at last where firm and fast
Her own Gibraltar towers!
The good ship Union's voyage is o'er,
At anchor safe she swings,

And loud and clear with cheer on cheer
Her joyous welcome rings:

Hurrah! Hurrah! it