Duke University Libraries 
 
 The Guerillas. 
 Conf Pam q#i4i 
 
KR(»M THI KI'MMoMi KXAXINER. 
 
 It may add to the interest with which the following 
 lines will he rend to know tlml Ihej were composed in 
 :t Yankee Bastile. They reach us in manuscript tbi 
 the courtesy of a lately returned jiri.-. hht. 
 
 THE GUERRILLAS- 
 
 Awake and to horse, my brotliers; 
 
 For the dawn is glimmering gay, 
 And hark ! in the crackling brushwood 
 
 There are feet that tread this way. 
 
 10 comethT" "A friend I" "What tidii 
 
 "Oh God ! I sicken to tell 
 For the i: trill seems earth no longer, 
 And its Bights are the Bights of Hell. 
 
 " From far off conquered cities. 
 
 Comes .1 yoice of stilled trail, 
 And the shri'-ks and moans of the u0O» 
 
 Ring cut like a dirge on the gale. 
 
 " I've seen from the smoking villiage 
 Our mothers and daughters fly ; 
 le little children 
 .Sank down in ihe furrows to-die. 
 
 "(in the banks of the battle-stained river & 
 I stood as the noonlight shone, ^^ 
 
 And it glared "i\ thp f, UT v f m y brother ^^mL 
 
 As 111" sh 1 wa e swept him "on. ^JH 
 
 " Where my Bbtnewas glad, are ashes, 
 
 And horrors and shame had been there, 
 For I found on the fallen lintel 
 
 This tress of my wife's torn hair. 
 
 " Tiny are turning the slaves upon us 
 
 And with more than fiends' worst art. 
 Have uncovered the fire of the Savage 
 
 That slept in his untaught heart. 
 
 " The ties to our heart that bound bin). 
 
 They have rent with curses away. 
 And maddened him with their madness 
 
 To l>e almost as brutal as they. 
 
 " With baiter and torch and Bible, 
 
 And hymns to the sound of the drum, 
 Tbej preach i he • '■■■ pal of Murder 
 
 And pray for Lust's kingdom to come. 
 
 saddle! To saddle ' My brothers I 
 Look up to the rising sun, 
 And ask the God who shines there. 
 
 Whether deeds like those shall be done 1 
 
 " Wherever the vandal ODE 
 
 l'ress home to bis heart with your steel 
 And when at bis bosom you can not, 
 
 Like the serpent, go, strike at his heel. 
 
 "Through thicket and wood go hunt him, 
 
 Creep on to his camp fire side, 
 And let ten of his corpses blacken 
 
 Where one of our brothers hath died. 
 
 " In his fainting foot-sore march 
 
 In his flight from the stricken fray. 
 In the snare of the lonely ambush 
 
 The debts we owe him, pay. 
 
 "In God's band, alone, ia vengeance, 
 
 But lie strikes with the hands of men, 
 And His blight would wither our manhood 
 
 If wc smite no: the smiter again. 
 
 u 11 y the graves where our fathers slumber, 
 By the shrines where our mothers prayed, 
 
 By our homes and hopes and freedom 
 Let every man swear on his blade, 
 
 " That he will not sheath or stay it, 
 
 'Till from point to hilt will glow, 
 With the Hush of Almighty vengeance 
 
 In the blood of the felon foe." 
 
 They swore — and the answering sunlight 
 
 Leaped red from their lifted swords, 
 And the hale of their hearts made echo 
 
 To the wrath in their burning words. 
 
 There's weeping in all New England, 
 
 And by Schuylkill's banks a knell, 
 And the widows there, and the orphans 
 
 How the oath was kept, can tell. 
 
peRnulife* 
 P H8.5