Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/266

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They come with the ringing bugle, And the deep drums’ mellow roar; Till the soul is faint with longing For the hands we clasp no more!

Oh, band in the pine wood cease! Or the heart will melt with tears, For the gallant eyes and the smiling lips, And the voices of old years.



[John Reuben Thompson was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1823. After graduating from the University of Virginia, he studied law and settled in Richmond. His interest in literary pursuits caused him, however, to turn aside from law in 1847 to the editorship of the Southern Literary Messenger. In 1859 he moved to Augusta, Georgia, to become editor of The Southern Field and Fireside. Being incapacitated by frail health for military service, Thompson went during the Civil War to London, where he wrote articles for English magazines in defense of the Confederacy. In 1866 he became literary editor of the New York Evening Post, and is said to have been one of the two most distinguished occupants of that position. He died in New York in 1873. His poems have unfortunately never been collected in book form.]

