278 A PLAINT FROM SAVAGE'S. Ho! sons of the Puritan ! sons of the Roundhead! Leave your fields fallow, your ships at the Raise the old pennon's staff! Let the fierce cannon's laugh, Till the votaries of Ammon's calf A PLAINT FROM SAVAGE'S. BY GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND. I. ALAS! for the pleasant peace we knew When the rivers were bright and the skies were blue By the homes of Henrico. We dreamed of wars that were far away, And read, as in fable, of blood that ran Where the James and Chickahominy stray, Through the groves of Powhattan. A PLAINT FROM SAVAGE'S. II. 'Tis a dream come true, for the afternoons 279 The pigeons have flown from the eaves and tiles, III. They have torn the Indian fisher's nets That babbled and brawled in glee; The corpses are strewn in Fairy Oak glades, The hoarse guns thunder from Drury's Ridge, The fishes that played in the cool deep shades Are frightened from Bottom Bridge. IV. I would that the year were blotted away, And the strawberries green in the hedge again; That the scythe might swing in the tangled hay, And the squirrels romp in the glen; The walnuts sprinkle the clover slopes 280 THE VARUNA. And the winter restore the golden hopes That were trampled in a year. Michie's Farm, Savage's Station, Va. WHO THE VARUNA. SUNK APRIL TWENTY-FIFTH, 1862. BY GEORGE H. BOKER. HO has not heard of the dauntless Varuna? Who shall not hear, while the brown Mississippi Crippled and leaking she entered the battle, Sinking and burning she fought through the fray, Crushed were her sides and the waves ran across her, Ere, like a death-wounded lion at bay, Sternly she closed in the last fatal grapple, Then in her triumph moved grandly away. Five of the rebels, like satellites, round her, Shot, terror-stricken, beyond her dread sphere. THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862. 281 We who are waiting with crowns for the victors, Though we should offer the wealth of our store, Load the Varuna from deck down to kelson, Still would be niggard, such tribute to pour On courage so boundless. It beggars possession, It knocks for just payment at heaven's bright door! Cherish the heroes who fought the Varuna; THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862. BY JOHN G. WHITTIER. HE flags of war like storm-birds fly, THE The charging trumpets blow; Yet rolls no thunder in the sky, No earthquake strives below. And calm and patient nature keeps Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps 282 THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862. And still she walks in golden hours Through harvest-happy farms, And still she wears her fruits and flowers What means the gladness of the plain, The mirth that shakes the beard of grain, Ah! eyes may well be full of tears, She meets with smiles our bitter grief, Still in the cannon's pause we hear She knows the seed lies safe below |