Many a worthy has here, I ween, Made brief sojourn or long abode: Johnson, dining behind the screen; Goldsmith, vagrant along the road; Keats, ah, pitiful! poor and ill, Harassed and hurt, in his short spring day; Best Sir Walter, with flagging quill Digging the mountain of debt away. Needy comrade, whose evil star, Pallid-frowning, decrees you wrong, Greatly neighboured, in truth, we are; Hold your heart up and sing your song! Lift your eyes to the book-shelf where, Glorious-gilded, a shining show, Every man in his mansion fair, Dwell the princes of Poverty Row! THE TRUMPETER Two ships, alone in sky and sea, Hang clinched, with crash and roar; There is but one--whiche’er it be-- Will ever come to shore. And will it be the grim black bulk, That towers so evil now? Or will it be The Grace of God, With the angel at her prow? The man that breathes the battle’s breath May live at last to know; But the trumpeter lies sick to death In the stifling dark below. He hears the fight above him rave; He fears his mates must yield; He lies as in a narrow grave Beneath a battle-field. His fate will fall before the ship’s, Whate’er the ship betide; He lifts the trumpet to his lips As though he kissed a bride. “Now blow thy best, blow thy last, My trumpet, for the Right!”-- He has sent his soul in one strong blast, To hearten them that fight. GREENCASTLE JENNY A BALLAD OF ’SIXTY-THREE Oh, Greencastle streets were a stream of steel With the slanted muskets the soldiers bore, And the scared earth muttered and shook to feel The tramp and the rumble of Longstreet’s Corps; The bands were blaring “The Bonny Blue Flag,” And the banners borne were a motley many; And watching the gray column wind and drag Was a slip of a girl--we’ll call her Jenny. A slip of a girl--what needs her name?-- With her cheeks aflame and her lips aquiver, As she leaned and looked with a loyal shame At the steady flow of the steely river: Till a storm grew black in the hasel eyes Time had not tamed, nor a lover sighed for; And she ran and she girded her, apron-wise, With the flag she loved and her brothers died for. Out of the doorway they saw her start, (Pickett’s Virginians were marching through,) The hot little foolish hero-heart Armoured with stars and the sacred blue. Clutching the folds of red and white Stood she and bearded those ranks of theirs, Shouting shrilly with all her might, “Come and take it, the man that dares!”