The National tribune., 1900-02-08
THE DISMAL SWAMP.
The Famous MOrass in War Time,
and Some Experiences in Sol
diering There.
BY J. c. J. LANGBEIN, 9TH n. Y. (HAw.
KINS ZOUAVES),

In the year 1903 the celebrated Irish
poet, Tom Moore, visited America, and while
here the Dismal Swamp. While stopping
at Norfolk, Va, he wrote that beautiful
ballad, entitled, "The Lake of the Dismal
Swamp" founded upon the legend of a
young man who lost his mind upon the
death of the girl he loved, and who, sud
denly disappearing from his friends, was
never afterwards heard of.
AS he had frequently said in his rawlings
that the girl was not dead, but gone to
the Dismal Swamp, ii is supposed that he
had wandered into that dreary wilderness,
and had died of hunger there, or been lost
in some of its dreadful moraSseS. No
sketch of the Dismal Swamp, it seems to
me, would be complete without this beauti-
full poem, and therefore give it entire:
"They made her a grave too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true;
And she's gone to the Lake Of the Dismal
Swamp,
Where all night long by FREELY lamp
She paddles her white canoe.
"And her freely lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle ] soon shall hear;
Long and loving our life shall be,
And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree
When the footstep of death is near.
Away 10 the Dismal Swamp he speeds
His path was rugged and sore.
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many fen, where the serpent
feeds,
And man never trod before.
And when on earth he sunk TO sleep,
If slumber his eyelidS knew,
He lay where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venoInous tear, and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew.
And near him the she wolf stirred the
brake,
And the coppersnake breathed in his ear.
Till he starting cried from his dream awake:
%, when shall ! see the dIISky lake,
And the white canoe OF my dear:'
'He saw the lake, and meteor bright
Quick DER its surface played;
Welcome he said, my dear ones light
And the dim shore echoed for many a night
The name Of the death-cold maid.
It'll he followed a boat of the birchen bark,
Which carried him of from shore:
Far, far he followed the meteor sparls-
The wind was high, and the clouds We're
dark,
And the boat returned no more.
"But oft from the Indian hunters camp,
This lover and maid so true,
Are seen at the hour of midnight damp
To cross the lake by FREELY lamp,
And paddle their white canoe"
Many of the members of the old 9th n.
Y. (Hawkins's Zouaves) can not but re-
member, as they cast back their minds
N imaginative reaection 80 years aso.
how graphic yet true is the poets descrlp-
ton Of this weird, romantic. yet dismal
place. AS a drummer boy" in that reai.
tnent well remember Co. B (the company
to which / was attached) had quarters
on an old sloop when going through the
canal q the Swamp.
The Now York Tribune Of May 80, 1852.
contained the following: This morning
the side-whsel steamer Port Royal arrived
here fortress Monioe) from Roanoke
Island3 va the Curdtuck Sound ard Dis
NAL Swamp Canal. Col Hawkins and a
company Of his gallant zouaves (Co. X
are the first to open communication between
Gens. Wool and Burnside By this move
mant We can dispense with all seawsrd
transportation, and forward supplies, etc,
IN safe and rapid manner to our troops in
that vicinity"
The regiment was very near the Swamp
whom 1t fought in the battle Of Camden. or
S0vh Mills, Or Sawyel's Lane, as the
OnnfederAtes called it, on the 10Th OF April.
ASe2, The object of the expedition that
yasplted in the battle was to prevent the