No unresponsive soul had heard
That plaintive note's appealing,
So deeply "Home, Sweet Home" had stirred
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.
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
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,
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,
Gave this one touch of Nature.
JOHN RANDOLPH THOMPSON.
* * * * *
UNDER THE SHADE OF THE TREES.
[The last words of Stonewall Jackson[A] were: "Let us cross the river
and rest under the shade of the trees."]
[Footnote A: Major-General Thomas J. Jackson, C.S.A., killed on a
reconnoissance, May 10, 1863.]
What are the thoughts that are stirring his breast?
What is the mystical vision he sees?
--"Let us pass over the river, and rest
Under the shade of the trees."
Has he grown sick of his toils and his tasks?
Sighs the worn spirit for respite or ease?
Is it a moment's cool halt that he asks
Under the shade of the trees?
Is it the gurgle of water whose flow
Ofttimes has come to him, borne on the breeze,
Memory listens to, lapsing so low,
Under the shade of the trees?
Nay--though the rasp of the flesh was so sore,
Faith, that had yearnings far keener than these,
Saw the soft sheen of the Thitherward Shore
Under the shade of the trees;--
Caught the high psalm of ecstatic delight--
Heard the harps harping, like soundings of seas--
Watched earth's assoiled ones walking in white
Under the shade of the trees.
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