Anything heavy, or hard, or keen-- Any sort of slaying machine! Anything with a willing mind And the steady arm of a man behind. Want a weapon? Why, capture one! Every Doodle has got a gun, Belt, and bayonet, bright and new; Kill a Doodle, and capture two! Shoulder to shoulder, son and sire! All, call all! to the feast of fire! Mother and maiden, and child and slave, A common triumph or a single grave. {133} THE BLACK FLAG. The raising of the black flag means death without quarter. It means that prisoners taken should be slaughtered at once. It is contrary to the spirit of modern warfare. General Sherman, in his celebrated letter to the Mayor of Atlanta, says, "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." War arouses the fiercest, most tiger-like passions of mankind. Were it not so, the poet who wrote "The Mountain of the Lovers" could never have written "The Black Flag." Paul Hamilton Hayne was born in Charleston, S. C., in 1830. He abandoned the practice of law for literary pursuits. He contributed to the _Southern Literary Messenger_, and for a while edited the Charleston _Literary Gazette_. He entered the Southern army at the outbreak of the civil war, and served until obliged to resign by failing health. His house and all his personal property were destroyed at the bombardment of Charleston. He wrote extensively both in poetry and prose. Like the roar of the wintry surges on a wild, tempestuous strand, The voice of the maddened millions comes up from an outraged land; For the cup of our woe runs over, and the day of our grace is past, And Mercy has fled to the angels, and Hatred is king at last! CHORUS: Then up with the sable banner! Let it thrill to the War God's breath, For we march to the watchword--Vengeance! And we follow the captain--Death! In the gloom of the gory breaches, on the ramparts wrapped in flame, 'Mid the ruined homesteads, blackened by a hundred deeds of shame; Wheresoever the vandals rally, and the bands of the alien meet, We will crush the heads of the hydra with the stamp of our armed feet. They have taught us a fearful lesson! 'tis burned on our hearts in fire, And the souls of a host of heroes leap with a fierce desire; And we swear by all that is sacred, and we swear by all that is pure, That the crafty and cruel dastards shall ravage our homes no more. We will roll the billows or battle back, back on the braggart foe, Till his leaguered and stricken cities shall quake with a coward's throe; They shall compass the awful meaning of the conflict their lust begun, When the Northland rings with wailing, and the grand old cause hath won. LORENA.