Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1863-01-22
POETS CORNER

Ahym1ng Sne gtdeu-foaAos " tne noPPy ~"
Years
That are now beneath the snow.
For the same awful and portentous shadow
That overcast the earth,
And snote the land last year with desolation'
Still dsrkens every hearth.
And the carrier hears Beethoyen's mighty
death-mareh
Come up from every mart,
And he hears and feels it breathing In his
bosom,
And beating in his heart
And to-day, like Scared and weather beaten
veteran,
Again he comes along,
To tell the story of the Old Years struggles,
In another New Years song.
And the song is his, but not so with the story
For the story, you must know,
Was told in prose to Assistant Surgeon
By soldier Of Shiloh;
By Robert Burton, who was brought up on
the Adams
With his death wound in his side;
And who told the story to the Assistant Sur
geon
On the same night that he died:
But the singer feels it will be better suit the
ballad,
If all should deem it right,
To sing the story as if what it speaks Of
Had happened but last night:
"Come q little nearer, Doctor-Thank you
let me take the cup!
Draw your chair up-draw it eloser-just an
other little supl-
May be you may think I'm better, but I'm
pretty we'll used up
Doctor you've done all you could do, but I'm
Just going up.
''Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it is
no use to try"
@Nevef say that" said the Surgeon, as be
smothered down a sigh,
at will never do, old comrade, for soldier
to say die"
"What you soy will make no difference, Doc
tor, when you come to die.
doctor, what has been the matterP' "You
were very faint they say;
You must try to get to sleep now" "Doetor,
have / been awayP
"No, my venerable comrade." "Doetor, will
you please to stay7
won't have long to stay!
Il have got my marching orders and am ready
now to 90;
Doctor, did you say fainted?-but it couldn't
have been So
For as sure as Pm sergeant and was wound
ed at Shiloh,
I've this very night been back thereon the
old field Of Shiloh.
"You may think it all dehsion-all the sick
ness of the brain
If you do you are mistaken, and mistaken TO
my pain;
For upon my dying honor, as hope to live
have Just been back to Shiloh and all over it
againl
"This is all that rememb er; the last time
the Lighter came,
And the lights had all been lowered, and the
noises much the same,
He had not been gone five minutes before some
thing called my name
ORDERLY -SERGEANT-R -RoBERr- -BuRroSp lust
that way it called my name.
HThen thought, who could have called me
so distinctly and so slow
It can't be the Lighter, surely. he could not
have spoken so,
And 1 tried to answer, Here, sirp but ]
couldn't make it GO,
For couldn't move o muscle, and l couldn't
make it go!
"Then thought, It's all nightmare-all q
humbug and borel
1t is just another grapevine, and it won't come
any more;
Bat it came, sir, notwithstanding, lust the
same words as before
fORDERLK-SERGEAST-R RoBERT-BUR1oS y more
distinctly than before!
"That is all that remember till sudden q
burst of light,
And / stood besiJe the River, where we stood
that Sunday night
Waiting to be ferried over 10 the dark bluffs
opposite,
When the River seemed Perditlon and all
He'll seemed eppositef
'sAnd the same cid palpitatien came aeaip.
with all its power,
And heard bugie soundingas from Heaven
or Tower;
And the same mysterious Voice said: TT Is,
TUE ELEVENTH HOUR!
0RDERLr SEReEMT-RoBERr BURroS-Ir Is
THE ELEVENTH HoUR!'
"Doctor Austinl-what day is thist"-aIt is,
Wednesday night, you know"
"Yes! To morrow will be New Years, and a.
right good time belowi
s'What tune is it, Doctor Austin n'-"Nearlv
twelve;"-"Then don't you go.
Can it be that all this happened-sll this
not an hour agol
"There was where the gunboats opened on the
dark, nebellioRs host %
And where Webster semi-eireled his last guns
upon the coast
There were still the two log houses, just the
same or else their ghost
And the same old transport came and took me
eyer--Or its ghost?
sand the whole field lay before me, all de-
serted far and wide
There was where they fell on Prentiss-there
MeClernand met the tide;
There was where stern Sherman rallied. and
where Hurlbut's heroes died
Lower down where Wallace charged them
and kept charging till he died
aThere is where Lew. Wallace showed them
he was of the eaRRie kin
There was where old Nelson thundered and
where Rousseau waded in
There MeCook sent him to breakfast and
we all began 10 win
There was where the grapeshot took me Just
as we began to win.
aNov a shroud of snow and silence over
everything was spread;
And but for this old, blue mantle, and the
old hat on my head,
! should not have even doubted, at this mo- |
ment, was dead,
For my footsteps were as silent as the snow
upon the dead!
ssDsstb and SileneeI na.,b - c:,--,