“Even in gay Newport there were sad reverberations of the strife. I shall never forget an afternoon on which I drove into town with my son, by this time a lad of fourteen, and found the main street lined with carriages, and the carriages filled with white-faced people, intent on I knew not what. Meeting a friend, I asked: ‘Why are these people here? What are they waiting for and why do they look as they do?’ “‘They are waiting for the mail. Don’t you know that we have had a dreadful reverse?’ Alas! this was the second battle of Bull Run. I have made some record of it in a poem entitled ‘The Flag,’ which I dare mention here because Mr. Emerson, on hearing it, said to me, ‘I like the architecture of that poem.’” The opening verse is as follows: There’s a flag hangs over my threshold, whose folds are more dear to me Than the blood that thrills in my bosom its earnest of liberty; And dear are the stars it harbors in its sunny field of blue As the hope of a further heaven, that lights all our dim lives through. Before the war, Newport had been a favorite resort for Southerners. During the summer of 1861 a number were still there, and it must be confessed some of them behaved with very little tact. According to reports current at the time, these individuals carried politics inside the church doors. When the prayer for the President of the United States was read, they arose from their knees in order to show their disapproval. At its conclusion they again knelt. Women would draw aside the voluminous skirts then in fashion, to prevent their coming in contact with the United States flag. I have always fancied that the lines in “The Flag,” Salute the flag in its virtue, or pass on where others rule, were inspired by this behavior of “The Secesh,” as we then called them. Some of these persons, although belonging to good society, had the bad taste to boast in our presence of how the South was going to “whip” the North. At a certain picnic among the Paradise Rocks, my mother resolved to give these people a lesson in patriotism. One of our number, a quiet, elderly lady, was selected to act as America, the queen of the occasion. She was crowned with flowers, and we all saluted her with patriotic songs. “The First Martyr” tells the story of a visit to the wife of John Brown before the latter’s execution: My five-years’ darling, on my knee, Chattered and toyed and laughed with me; “Now tell me, mother mine,” quoth she, “Where you went i’ the afternoon.” “Alas! my pretty little life, I went to see a sorrowing wife, Who will be widowed soon.” * * * * * Child! It is fit that thou shouldst weep; The very babe unborn would leap To rescue such as he.