Sons, who have peopled the gorgeous West, And planted the Pilgrim arm anew, Where by a richer soil caressed, It grows as ever its parent grew,-- Say, do you hear--while the very bells Of your churches ring with her ancient voice, And the song of your children sweetly tells How true was the land of your fathers’ choice-- Do you hear the traitors who bid you speak The word that shall sever the sacred tie? And ye who dwell by the golden peak, Has the subtle whisper glided by? Has it crossed the immemorial plains To coasts where the gray Pacific roars, And the Pilgrim blood in the people’s veins Is pure as the wealth of their mountain ores? Spirits of sons who side by side In a hundred battles fought and fell, Whom now no East and West divide, In the isles where the shades of heroes dwell,-- Say, has it reached your glorious rest, And ruffled the calm which crowns you there? The shame that recreants have confest The plot that floats in the troubled air? Sons of New England, here and there, Wherever men are still holding by The honor our fathers left so fair,-- Say, do you hear the cowards’ cry? Crouching amongst her grand old crags, Lightly our mother heeds their noise, With her fond eyes fixed on distant flags; But you--do you hear it, Yankee boys? January 19, 1863. [Illustration] IN LOUISIANA. BY J. W. DE FOREST. Without a hillock stretched the plain; For months we had not seen a hill; The endless, flat Savannahs still Wearied our eyes with waving cane. One tangled cane-field lay before The ambush of the cautious foe; Behind a black bayou, with low Reed-hidden, miry, treacherous shore; A sullen swamp along the right, Where alligators slept and crawled, And moss-robed cypress giants sprawled Athwart the noontide’s blistering light. Quick, angry spite of musketry Proclaimed our skirmishers at work; We saw their crouching figures lurk Through thickets firing from the knee. Our Parrotts felt the distant wood With humming, shrieking, growling shell; When suddenly the mouth of hell Gaped fiercely for its human food. A long and low blue roll of smoke Curled up a hundred yards ahead, And deadly storms of driving lead From rifle-pits and cane-fields broke. Then, while the bullets whistled thick, And hidden batteries boomed and shelled, “Charge bayonets!” the colonel yelled; “Battalion forward,--double quick!” With even slopes of bayonets Advanced--a dazzling, threatening crest-- Right toward the rebels’ hidden nest, The dark blue, living billow sets. The color-guard was at my side; I heard the color-sergeant groan; I heard the bullet crush the bone; I might have touched him as he died.