Hurrah! the day has won the cause! No gray-clad host henceforth Shall come with fire and sword to tread the highways of the North! ’Twas such a flood as when ye see, along the Atlantic shore, The great spring-tide roll grandly in with swelling surge and roar: It seems no wall can stay its leap or balk its wild desire Beyond the bound that Heaven hath fixed to higher mount, and higher; But now, when whitest lifts its crest, most loud its billows call, Touched by the Power that led them on, they fall, and fall, and fall. Even thus, unstayed upon his course, to Gettysburg the foe His legions led, and fought, and fled, and might no further go. Full many a dark-eyed Southern girl shall weep her lover dead; But with a price the fight was ours--we too have tears to shed! The bells that peal our triumph forth anon shall toll the brave, Above whose heads the cross must stand, the hill-side grasses wave! Alas! alas! the trampled grass shall thrive another year, The blossoms on the apple-boughs with each new spring appear, But when our patriot-soldiers fall, Earth gives them up to God; Though their souls rise in clearer skies, their forms are as the sod; Only their names and deeds are ours--but, for a century yet, The dead who fell at Gettysburg the land shall not forget. God send us peace! and where for aye the loved and lost recline Let fall, O South, your leaves of palm--O North, your sprigs of pine! But when, with every ripened year, we keep the harvest-home, And to the dear Thanksgiving-feast our sons and daughters come-- When children’s children throng the board in the old homestead spread, And the bent soldier of these wars is seated at the head, Long, long the lads shall listen to hear the gray-beard tell Of those who fought at Gettysburg and stood their ground so well: “’Twas for the Union and the Flag,” the veteran shall say, “Our grand old Army held the ridge, and won that glorious day!” [Illustration] [Illustration] AT GETTYSBURG. Like a furnace of fire blazed the midsummer sun, When to saddle we leaped at the order, Spurred on by the boom of the deep-throated gun That told of the foe on our border. A mist in our rear lay Antietam’s dark plain, And thoughts of its carnage came o’er us; But smiling beyond surged the fields of ripe grain, And we swore none should reap it before us. That night, with the ensign who rode by my side, On the camp’s dreary edge I stood picket, Our ears intent lest every wind-rustle hide A foe’s stealthy tread in the thicket; And there, while we watched the first arrows of dawn Through the veil of the rising mists quiver, He told how the foeman had closed in upon His home by the Tennessee River.