Anon a lull. The beacon dies: “Are they out of that strait accurst” But other flames now dawning rise, Not mellowly brilliant like the first, But rolled in smoke, whose whitish volumes burst. A baleful brand, a hurrying torch Whereby anew the boats are seen-- A burning transport all alurch! Breathless we gaze; yet still we glean Glimpses of beauty as we eager lean. The effulgence takes an amber glow Which bathes the hill-side villas far; Affrighted ladies mark the show Painting the pale magnolia-- The fair, false, Circe light of cruel War. The barge drifts doomed, a plague-struck one. Shoreward in yawls the sailors fly. But the gauntlet now is nearly run, The spleenful forts by fits reply, And the burning boat dies down in morning’s sky. All out of range. Adieu, Messieurs! Jeers, as it speeds, our parting gun. So burst we through their barriers And menaces every one: So Porter proves himself a brave man’s son.[7] Stonewall Jackson. Mortally wounded at Chancellorsville. (May, 1863.) The Man who fiercest charged in fight, Whose sword and prayer were long-- Stonewall! Even him who stoutly stood for Wrong, How can we praise? Yet coming days Shall not forget him with this song. Dead is the Man whose Cause is dead, Vainly he died and set his seal-- Stonewall! Earnest in error, as we feel; True to the thing he deemed was due, True as John Brown or steel. Relentlessly he routed us; But _we_ relent, for he is low-- Stonewall! Justly his fame we outlaw; so We drop a tear on the bold Virginian’s bier, Because no wreath we owe. Stonewall Jackson. (Ascribed to a Virginian.) One man we claim of wrought renown Which not the North shall care to slur; A Modern lived who sleeps in death, Calm as the marble Ancients are: ’Tis he whose life, though a vapor’s wreath, Was charged with the lightning’s burning breath-- Stonewall, stormer of the war. But who shall hymn the roman heart? A stoic he, but even more: The iron will and lion thew Were strong to inflict as to endure: Who like him could stand, or pursue? His fate the fatalist followed through; In all his great soul found to do Stonewall followed his star. He followed his star on the Romney march Through the sleet to the wintry war; And he followed it on when he bowed the grain-- The Wind of the Shenandoah; At Gaines’s Mill in the giant’s strain-- On the fierce forced stride to Manassas-plain, Where his sword with thunder was clothed again, Stonewall followed his star. His star he followed athwart the flood To Potomac’s Northern shore, When midway wading, his host of braves “_My Maryland!_” loud did roar-- To red Antietam’s field of graves, Through mountain-passes, woods and waves, They followed their pagod with hymns and glaives, For Stonewall followed a star.