Apathy and Enthusiasm. (1860-1.)

I. O the clammy cold November, / And the winter white and dead, / And the terror dumb with stupor, / And the sky a sheet of lead; / And events that came resounding / With the cry that _All was lost_, / Like the thunder-cracks of massy ice / In intensity of frost -- / Bursting one upon another / Through the horror of the calm. / The paralysis of arm / In the anguish of the heart; / And the hollowness and dearth. / The appealings of the mother / To brother and to brother / Not in hatred so to part -- / And the fissure in the hearth / Growing momently more wide. / Then the glances 'tween the Fates, / And the doubt on every side, / And the patience under gloom / In the stoniness that waits / The finality of doom.

II. So the winter died despairing, / And the weary weeks of Lent; / And the ice-bound rivers melted, / And the tomb of Faith was rent. / O, the rising of the People / Came with springing of the grass, / They rebounded from dejection / And Easter came to pass. / And the young were all elation / Hearing Sumter's cannon roar, / And they thought how tame the Nation / In the age that went before. / And Michael seemed gigantical, / The Arch-fiend but a dwarf; / And at the towers of Erebus / Our striplings flung the scoff. / But the elders with foreboding / Mourned the days forever o'er, / And re called the forest proverb, / The Iroquois' old saw: / _Grief to every graybeard / When young Indians lead the war._