Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/280

262 His warrior soul its earthly shackles broke In the full sunshine of a peaceful town; When all the storm was hushed, the trusty oak That propped our cause went down. Though his alone the blood that flecks the ground, Recalling all his grand heroic deeds, Freedom herself is writhing in the wound, And all the country bleeds. He entered not the Nation s Promised Land At the red belching of the cannon s mouth, But broke the House of Bondage with his hand The Moses of the South! O gracious God! not gainless is the loss: A glorious sunbeam gilds thy sternest frown; And while his country staggers neath the Cross, He rises with the Crown!

THADDEUS OLIVER

[Thaddeus Oliver was born in Twiggs County, Georgia, in 1826. He was an eloquent lawyer and a gifted man. He died in a hospital at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1864.]

ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC TO-NIGHT

"All quiet along the Potomac," they say,

"Except now and then a stray picket Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro, By a rifleman hid in the thicket.