Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/285

 CAROLINE A. BALL 267 Months passed, and war s thunders rolled over the land, Unsheathed was the sword and lighted the brand; Ye heard in the distance the noise of the fray, And prayed for our boy in the jacket of gray. Ah! vain all all vain were our prayers and our tears, The glad shout of victory rang in our ears; But our treasured one on the cold battlefield lay, While the lifeblood oozed out on the jacket of gray. His young comrades found him and tenderly bore His cold, lifeless form to his home by the shore; Oh, dark were our hearts on that terrible day When we saw our dead boy in the jacket of gray. Ah! spotted and tattered and stained now with gore Was the garment which once he so proudly wore. We bitterly wept as we took it away, And replaced with death s white robe the jacket of gray. We laid him to rest in his cold, narrow bed, And graved on the marble we placed o er his head, As the proudest of tributes our sad hearts could pay,

"He never disgraced the dear jacket of gray." Then fold it up carefully, lay it aside, Tenderly touch it, look on it w r ith pride; For dear must it be to our hearts evermore. The jacket of gray our loved soldier boy wore.