I am sitting lone and weary
On the hearth of my darkened room,
And the low wind's miserere
Makes sadder the midnight gloom;
There's a terror that's nameless nigh me--
There's a phantom spell in the air,
And methinks that the dead glide by me,
And the breath of the grave's in my hair!

'Tis a vision of ghastly faces,
All pallid, and worn with pain,
Where the splendor of manhood's graces
Give place to a gory stain;
In a wild and weird procession
They sweep by my startled eyes,
And stern with their fate's fruition,
Seem melting in blood-red skies.

Have they come from the shores supernal,
Have they passed from the spirit's goal,
'Neath the veil of the life eternal,
To dawn on my shrinking soul?
Have they turned from the choiring angels,
Aghast at the woe and dearth
That war, with his dark evangels,
Hath wrought in the loved of earth?

Vain dream! 'mid the far-off mountains
They lie, where the dew-mists weep,
And the murmur of mournful fountains
Breaks over their painful sleep;
On the breast of the lonely meadows,
Safe, safe from the despot's will,
They rest in the star-lit shadows,
And their brows are white and still!

Alas! for the martyred heroes
Cut down at their golden prime,
In a strife with the brutal Neroes,
Who blacken the path of Time!
For them is the voice of wailing,
And the sweet blush-rose departs
From the cheeks of the maidens, paling
O'er the wreck of their broken hearts!

And alas! for the vanished glory
Of a thousand household spells!
And alas! for the tearful story
Of the spirit's fond farewells!
By the flood, on the field, in the forest,
Our bravest have yielded breath,
But the shafts that have smitten sorest,
Were launched by a viewless death!

Oh, Thou, that hast charms of healing,
Descend on a widowed land,
And bind o'er the wounds of feeling
The balms of Thy mystic hand!
Till the hearts that lament and languish,
Renewed by the touch divine,
From the depths of a mortal anguish
May rise to the calm of Thine!

Cleburne.