The Sunday herald. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1866-1887, 1880-07-11
The Days which shall he No Moro.

AT the annual meeting vi lne Army ull'
Navy Club In New Haven, Conn, lately, the follow
ng ine poem was read by Maj. J. W. DeForest;
The war was weary long;
How long and wearisome II was.
That strife 'twxt valiant right and valiant wrong;
'TwiN anarchy and crystalizng laws;
How weary weary, were the marches
In lands where noontide parches
Tho torrents OF the veins.
How many steaming plains,
Now ashy wastes, now green with honeyed cane
Our feet have tracked from glaring rim to rim,
While fever's vipers strayed
Through aching head and limb,
And gnawing hunger preyed
TIL e'en that gairish land grew dim.
The poison breathing moons
Hung over black agoons
Which poured their venom through the hazy night
And all the -quivered moons
Shot arrows glowing white
Which made the senses swim
And struck full many down In mortal swoons.
We heard the bullets hiss,
lncessint, shrill and fell,
The sharpest, deadliest note
That bursts from battle throat:
The piercing screech and jarrng whiIr
OF grape and canister:
And, dying from afar, the shell,
With changeful trembling, husky yell
demon tiger bounding miles
To spread his irnn claws
And tear the bleeding files;
While ever walled and crashed the musketry,
Commingled with the charging cry
OF men who living graced gracious cause
And died when 1t was beautiful To die.
In long pursuits,
When every blstered football seemed to bleed,
When reellng ranks wore out the very brutes,
And every furong showed its dying steed,
How strange with aching eyes TO scan
The flying dust OF cavalry,
tThe hOrsemen of our van)
Which up and down white roadways ran
unresting rs the pillows of the sea,
Retrenting and attacking. coming, going,
AS swift and devious as ffehy's glowing,
While here and there sabre's glare
Revealed that death was busy there,
strange, too, again
Advance through tremulons amber rays
The solemn, coumned haze
OF mighty marchings, visible afar,
The dim afreets of war,
The moving pillow clouds of Death simeon,
The tempest columns charged with doom,
Which over wars drear desert swarm.
Nenacing, monstrous, climbing to the skies,
And hasting to descend In storm
OF rushing lines to leapng batteries!
In dewy silence ocean-deep,
The hundred FOUNDER on the FASHIONED height
Awakened from Its sullen sleep
And poured with all Its ponderous might
A li0n-like, a grandiy solemn roar,
Which doomed and shuddered ON
From horizon to horizon,
Until the lofty frame
OF darkness shook from roof to floor
Then rose the boom a-sEy,
silent, gliding, lurid fend OF flame,
Which mounted swiftly while that awful cry
Along the rocking weIkins fed;
II clomb; 1t sailed, II curved Its flight,
1t stood one fearful moment overhead,
meteor as red as he'll;
Then burst IN ruins flaming awhile
In CHASTITY shatterings Of livid light,
Magnificent, sublime, and horribe
While changing like q Pandeinonic bell,
The great explosion shuddered on
From horizon to horizon,
And once again the mOnstrOus dome of night
Reeled outward from the
And shook from awful peak to boundless floor.
VI.
Yes, fearful were the sights and sounds
which swept the wars wide bounds,
1t seemed at times though we trod
Some other and most wofu world,
Unknown perhaps TO God.
Or else long since to ruin hurled,
Yet never did We shrink
We marched and fought with steady heart;
We marched TO Hades' brink
Without one coward start.
Our cause was good,
Betting mans most noble mood;
And II was noble, too, to brave
The great unknown beyond the grave.
All this was godlike, worthy all
That We had power to give,
Though In the giving we sheuld fail
Sore wouhded-yea, should cease to live.
Farewell, o bitter daysi we stand
Once more as brothers, we who strove-
God help us all the more TO love
Because we felt each others hand:
Because We saw each Others souls
Untncbing, fervent to the DEATH
And worthy Of the prOudest breath
That HObor's thunder-clarion rOllsl