_Such brave ones, foully snared By Belial’s wily plea, Were faithful unto the evil end-- Feudal fidelity._ “Well, then, your camps--come, tell the names” Freely he leveled his finger then: “Yonder--see--are our Georgians; on the crest, The Carolinians; lower, past the glen, Virginians--Alabamians--Mississippians--Kentuckians (Follow my finger)--Tennesseeans; and the ten Camps _there_--ask your grave-pits; they’ll tell. Halloa! I see the picket-hut, the den Where I last night lay.” “Where’s Lee” “In the hearts and bayonets of all yon men!” _The tribes swarm up to war As in ages long ago, Ere the palm of promise leaved And the lily of Christ did blow._ Their mounted pickets for miles are spied Dotting the lowland plain, The nearer ones in their veteran-rags-- Loutish they loll in lazy disdain. But ours in perilous places bide With rifles ready and eyes that strain Deep through the dim suspected wood Where the Rapidan rolls amain. _The Indian has passed away, But creeping comes another-- Deadlier far. Picket, Take heed--take heed of thy brother!_ From a wood-hung height, an outpost lone, Crowned with a woodman’s fort, The sentinel looks on a land of dole, Like Paran, all amort. Black chimneys, gigantic in moor-like wastes, The scowl of the clouded sky retort; The hearth is a houseless stone again-- Ah! where shall the people be sought? _Since the venom such blastment deals, The south should have paused, and thrice, Ere with heat of her hate she hatched The egg with the cockatrice._ A path down the mountain winds to the glade Where the dead of the Moonlight Fight lie low; A hand reaches out of the thin-laid mould As begging help which none can bestow. But the field-mouse small and busy ant Heap their hillocks, to hide if they may the woe: By the bubbling spring lies the rusted canteen, And the drum which the drummer-boy dying let go. _Dust to dust, and blood for blood-- Passion and pangs! Has Time Gone back? or is this the Age Of the world’s great Prime?_ The wagon mired and cannon dragged Have trenched their scar; the plain Tramped like the cindery beach of the damned-- A site for the city of Cain. And stumps of forests for dreary leagues Like a massacre show. The armies have lain By fires where gums and balms did burn, And the seeds of Summer’s reign. _Where are the birds and boys? Who shall go chestnutting when October returns? The nuts-- O, long ere they grow again._