No More Learning

That was the reason, as some folks say,
He fought so well on that terrible day.

And it was terrible. On the right
Raged for hours the heady fight,
Thundered the battery's double bass,--
Difficult music for men to face;
While on the left--where now the graves
Undulate like the living waves
That all that day unceasing swept
Up to the pits the Rebels kept--
Round shot ploughed the upland glades,
Sown with bullets, reaped with blades;
Shattered fences here and there
Tossed their splinters in the air;
The very trees were stripped and bare;
The barns that once held yellow grain
Were heaped with harvests of the slain;
The cattle bellowed on the plain,
The turkeys screamed with might and main,
And brooding barn-fowl left their rest
With strange shells bursting in each nest.

Just where the tide of battle turns,
Erect and lonely stood old John Burns.
How do you think the man was dressed?
He wore an ancient long buff vest,
Yellow as saffron,--but his best,
And, buttoned over his manly breast,
Was a bright blue coat, with a rolling collar,
And large gilt buttons,--size of a dollar,--
With tails that the country-folk called "swaller. "
He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned hat,
White as the locks on which it sat.
Never had such a sight been seen
For forty years on the village green,
Since old John Burns was a country beau,
And went to the "quiltings" long ago.

Close at his elbows all that day,
Veterans of the Peninsula,
Sunburnt and bearded, charged away;
And striplings, downy of lip and chin,--
Clerks that the Home Guard mustered in,--
Glanced, as they passed, at the hat he wore,
Then at the rifle his right hand bore;
And hailed him, from out their youthful lore,
With scraps of a slangy _repertoire_:
"How are you, White Hat? Put her through! "
"Your head's level! " and "Bully for you! "
Called him "Daddy,"--begged he'd disclose
The name of the tailor who made his clothes,
And what was the value he set on those;
While Burns, unmindful of jeer and scoff,
Stood there picking the rebels off,--
With his long brown rifle and bell-crown hat,
And the swallow-tails they were laughing at.

'Twas but a moment, for that respect
Which clothes all courage their voices checked:
And something the wildest could understand
Spake in the old man's strong right hand,
And his corded throat, and the lurking frown
Of his eyebrows under his old bell-crown;
Until, as they gazed, there crept an awe
Through the ranks in whispers, and some men saw,
In the antique vestments and long white hair,
The Past of the Nation in battle there;
And some of the soldiers since declare
That the gleam of his old white hat afar,
Like the crested plume of the brave Navarre,
That day was their oriflamme of war.

So raged the battle.
You know the rest:
How the rebels, beaten and backward pressed,
Broke at the final charge, and ran.
At which John Burns--a practical man--
Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows,
And then went back to his bees and cows.

That is the story of old John Burns;
This is the moral the reader learns:
In fighting the battle, the question's whether
You'll show a hat that's white, or a feather!





TWILIGHT ON SUMTER

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD

[Sidenote: Aug. 24, 1863]
_After the surrender of Major Anderson, the Confederates
strengthened the fort; but, in the spring of 1863, the U. S. guns
on Morris Island battered it into a shapeless ruin. _


Still and dark along the sea
Sumter lay;
A light was overhead,
As from burning cities shed,
And the clouds were battle-red,
Far away.
Not a solitary gun
Left to tell the fort had won,
Or lost the day!
Nothing but the tattered rag
Of the drooping Rebel flag,
And the sea-birds screaming round it in their play.

How it woke one April morn,
Fame shall tell;
As from Moultrie, close at hand,
And the batteries on the land,
Round its faint but fearless band
Shot and shell
Raining hid the doubtful light;
But they fought the hopeless fight
Long and well,
(Theirs the glory, ours the shame! )
Till the walls were wrapt in flame,
Then their flag was proudly struck, and Sumter fell.

Now--oh, look at Sumter now,
In the gloom!
Mark its scarred and shattered walls,
(Hark! the ruined rampart falls! )
There's a justice that appals
In its doom;
For this blasted spot of earth
Where Rebellion had its birth
Is its tomb!