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Semi-weekly Raleigh Register, Feb. 20, 1861
[From the N.O. Picayune]
Then and Now
I cannot forget with what kindling emotion
I've listened, my country, to tales of thy fame;
How I've counted thy heroes, with childish devotion,
And dwelt with a thrill upon each cherished name.
No envious lines then that country divided,
And the soul of my boyhood embraced it in love,
For it swept o'er the whole, in all equally prided,
With the eye of an eagle, and the heart of a dove.
I cannot forget how I bent o'er the pages,
Which told of the deeds of the brave men of yore;
Of Hale and Warren, of soldiers and sages,
Of Jasper who died with the colors he bore.
I see the brown schoolhouse, low under the hill,
The stream where we baited the weird speckled trout,
The wild urchins who gathered, and grew at once still,
To know what the story l read was about.
I recline once again by my grandfather's knee,
And the scent of the apple-blossoms borne on the air;
The low of the cattle, the hum of the bee,
And the smoke of his pipe---Ah! I seem to be there.
I can see how he laid it aside, and his eye
Kindled up with the light it had worn in the fray,
When he told how at Bunker's the shot rattled by,
And his kinsmen and foemen together they lay.
My Grandmother, too, with her unfinished knitting,
Her spectacles rising above her gray hair,
Way up on the wall, where the swallows were flitting,
Would show me the marks of the bullets still there.
Then he told me of Cowpens, of Moultrie and Trenton,
Way down in the land of the palms, how they fought,
And how they had finished the task they were bent on,
And the banner of freedom was at last enwrought.
No North, and no South, in his heart found a dwelling,
For all men were brothers in Liberty's dawn;
He'd grieve could he hear how these discords are swelling,
And I'm glad, for his sake, the old hero is gone.
Back, back through the years, for I sigh to remember
How vainly the lives of those heroes was given,
How madly their children now seek to dismember,
The land for whose glory their fathers had striven,
Back, back through the years, yet I bring from the glooming,
The passionate fervor of boyhood devotion,
And the star spangled banner above the clouds looming,
Like a beacon yet shines on the face of the ocean.
Natchitoches, Jan. 1861
Thanks to Vicki Betts for her work with these compilations.
[From the N.O. Picayune]
Then and Now
I cannot forget with what kindling emotion
I've listened, my country, to tales of thy fame;
How I've counted thy heroes, with childish devotion,
And dwelt with a thrill upon each cherished name.
No envious lines then that country divided,
And the soul of my boyhood embraced it in love,
For it swept o'er the whole, in all equally prided,
With the eye of an eagle, and the heart of a dove.
I cannot forget how I bent o'er the pages,
Which told of the deeds of the brave men of yore;
Of Hale and Warren, of soldiers and sages,
Of Jasper who died with the colors he bore.
I see the brown schoolhouse, low under the hill,
The stream where we baited the weird speckled trout,
The wild urchins who gathered, and grew at once still,
To know what the story l read was about.
I recline once again by my grandfather's knee,
And the scent of the apple-blossoms borne on the air;
The low of the cattle, the hum of the bee,
And the smoke of his pipe---Ah! I seem to be there.
I can see how he laid it aside, and his eye
Kindled up with the light it had worn in the fray,
When he told how at Bunker's the shot rattled by,
And his kinsmen and foemen together they lay.
My Grandmother, too, with her unfinished knitting,
Her spectacles rising above her gray hair,
Way up on the wall, where the swallows were flitting,
Would show me the marks of the bullets still there.
Then he told me of Cowpens, of Moultrie and Trenton,
Way down in the land of the palms, how they fought,
And how they had finished the task they were bent on,
And the banner of freedom was at last enwrought.
No North, and no South, in his heart found a dwelling,
For all men were brothers in Liberty's dawn;
He'd grieve could he hear how these discords are swelling,
And I'm glad, for his sake, the old hero is gone.
Back, back through the years, for I sigh to remember
How vainly the lives of those heroes was given,
How madly their children now seek to dismember,
The land for whose glory their fathers had striven,
Back, back through the years, yet I bring from the glooming,
The passionate fervor of boyhood devotion,
And the star spangled banner above the clouds looming,
Like a beacon yet shines on the face of the ocean.
Natchitoches, Jan. 1861
Thanks to Vicki Betts for her work with these compilations.