Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/375

Rh In her attic window the staff she set, To show that one heart was loyal yet.

Up the street came the rebel tread, Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right He glanced; the old flag met his sight.

“Halt!”—the dust-brown ranks stood fast. “Fire!”—out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash; It rent the banner with seam and gash.

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.

She leaned far out on the window-sill, And shook it forth with a royal will.

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country’s flag,” she said.

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, Over the face of the leader came;

The nobler nature within him stirred To life at that woman’s deed and word;

“Who touches a hair of yon gray head Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.

All day long through Frederick street Sounded the tread of marching feet:

All day long that free flag tost Over the heads of the rebel host.

Ever its torn folds rose and fell On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And through the hill-gaps sunset light Shone over it with a warm good-night.

Barbara Frietchie’s work is o’er, And the Rebel rides on his raids no more,

Honor to her! and let a tear Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall’s bier.

Over Barbara Frietchie’s grave, Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!

Peace and order and beauty draw Round thy symbol of light and law;

And ever the stars above look down On thy stars below in Frederick town!

birds against the April wind
 * Flew northward, singing as they flew;

They sang, “The land we leave behind
 * Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew.”

“O wild-birds, flying from the South,
 * What saw and heard ye, gazing down?”

“We saw the mortar’s upturned mouth,
 * The sickened camp, the blazing town!

“Beneath the bivouac’s starry lamps,
 * We saw your march-worn children die;

In shrouds of moss, in cypress swamps,
 * We saw your dead uncoffined lie.

“We heard the starving prisoner’s sighs
 * And saw, from line and trench, your sons

Follow our flight with home-sick eyes
 * Beyond the battery’s smoking guns.”

“And heard and saw ye only wrong
 * And pain,” I cried, “O wing-worn flocks?”

“We heard,” they sang, “the freedman’s song,
 * The crash of Slavery’s broken locks!

“We saw from new, uprising States
 * The treason-nursing mischief spurned,

As, crowding Freedom’s ample gates,
 * The long-estranged and lost returned.

“O’er dusky faces, seamed and old,
 * And hands horn-hard with unpaid toil,

With hope in every rustling fold,
 * We saw your star-dropt flag uncoil.

“And struggling up through sounds accursed,
 * A grateful murmur clomb the air;

A whisper scarcely heard at first,
 * It filled the listening heavens with prayer.