D GLORY AT SHILOH

SPRING on the Tennessee; April--and flowers
Bloom on its banks; the anemones white
In clusters of stars where the green holly towers
O'er bellworts, like butterflies hov'ring in flight.
The ground ivy tips its blue lips to the laurel,
And covers the banks of the water-swept bars
With a background of blue, in which the red sorrel
Are stripes where the pale corydalis are stars.

_Red, white and blue! O spring, did you send it,_
_And Flowers, did'st dream it for brothers to rend it?_

Spring on the Tennessee; Sabbath--and morning
Breaks with a bird note that pulses along;
A melody sobs in the heart of its dawning--
The pain that foreshadows the birth of a song.
Art thou a flecking, brave Bluebird, of sky light,
Or the sough of a minor wove into a beam?
Oh, Hermit Thrush, Hermit Thrush, thou of the eye bright,
Bird, or the spirit of song in a dream?

_"Our country--our country!" Why, birds, do you sing it?_
_And, woodland, why held you the echo, to ring it?_

Spring on the Tennessee; hark, Bluebird, listen!
Was that a bugle note far up the bend,
Where the murk waters flush and the white bars glisten,
Or dove cooing dove into love notes that blend?
And Wood Thrush, sweet, tell me,--that throbbing and humming,
Is it march at the double quick or wild bees that hum?
And that rumble that shakes like an earthquake coming--
Tell me, O Hermit Thrush, thunder or drum?

_O birds, you must fly from the home that God gave you!_
_O flowers, you must die 'neath the foot that would save you!_

Out from the wood with the morning mist o'er it
A gray line sweeps like a scythe of fire,
And it burns the stubble of blue before it,--
(How their bugles ring and their cannon roar it!)

_In Dixie land we'll take our stand,_
_And live and die in Dixie!_

Out from the deep wood clearer and nigher,
The gray lines roll, and the blue lines reel
Back on the river--their dead are piled higher
Than the muzzle of muskets thund'ring their peal:

_In Dixie land we'll take our stand,_
_And live and die for Dixie!_

Noon on the Tennessee; backward, still driven
The blue lines reel, and the ranks of the gray
Flash out with a fierceness that light up the heavens,
When