  SPRING on the Tennessee; April—and flowers Red, white and blue! O spring, did you send it, And Flowers, did’st dream it for brothers to rend it? Spring on the Tennessee; Sabbath—and morning Breaks with a bird note that pulses along; A melody sobs in the heart of its dawning— The pain that foreshadows the birth of a song. Art thou a flecking, brave Bluebird, of sky light, Or the sough of a minor wove into a beam? Oh, Hermit Thrush, Hermit Thrush, thou of the eye bright, Bird, or the spirit of song in a dream? “Our country—our country!” Why, birds, do you sing it? And, woodland, why held you the echo, to ring it? Spring on the Tennessee; hark, Bluebird, listen! Was that a bugle note far up the bend, Where the murk waters flush and the white bars glisten, Or dove cooing dove into love notes that blend? And Wood Thrush, sweet, tell me,—that throbbing and humming, Is it march at the double quick or wild bees that hum? And that rumble that shakes like an earthquake coming— Tell me, O Hermit Thrush, thunder or drum? O birds, you must fly from the home that God gave you! O flowers, you must die ’neath the foot that would save you! Out from the wood with the morning mist o’er it A gray line sweeps like a scythe of fire, And it burns the stubble of blue before it,— (How their bugles ring and their cannon roar it!) In Dixie land we’ll take our stand, And live and die in Dixie! Out from the deep wood clearer and nigher, The gray lines roll, and the blue lines reel Back on the river—their dead are piled higher Than the muzzle of muskets thund’ring their peal: In Dixie land we’ll take our stand, And live and die for Dixie! Noon on the Tennessee; backward, still driven The blue lines reel, and the ranks of the gray Flash out with a fierceness that light up the heavens, When the thunders of night meet the lightnings of day. Noon and past noon—and this is the story Of the flag that fell not, and they call it Old Glory: It flapped in the air, it flashed with the blare Of the bugles so shrill and so true, It faced quick about and steadied the rout And halted the lines of blue. And the boom-boom-boom of the maddened guns Roared round it thick and fast, And dead-dead-dead sang the learing lead Like hail in the sheeted blast, And up and around it, surge and swell, Rose the victor waves of the rebel yell, And Grant’s grim army staggered, but stood, With backs to the river and dyed it with blood In the shuttle of thunder and drum; And they cheered as it went to the front of the fray And turned the tide at the sunset of day, And they whispered: Buell is come! Spring on the Tennessee; April—and flowers Bloom on its banks; the anemones white In clusters of stars where the green holly towers O’er bellworts, like butterflies hov’ring in flight. And the ground ivy tips its blue lips to the laurel And covers the banks and the water-swept bars With a background of blue, in which the red sorrel Are stripes where the pale corydalis are stars. Red, white, and blue—it tells its own story— But, Spring, Who made it and named it Old Glory! John Trotwood Moore. |
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