Hold, murmurer, hold! Is country naught to thee?
Is freedom nothing? Naught an honored name?
What though the days be cold, or the nights dark,
The brave heart kindles for itself a flame
That warms and lightens up the world!
Home! What's home, if in craven shame
We seek its hearthstone? Bitterest of cold.
Better creep thither bruised, and torn, and lame,
Than seek it in health when justice needs our aid.
Where is the glory? Where is the reward?
Think of the generations that will come
To praise and bless the hero. Think of God,
Who in due time will call His soldiers home.
How comfort mother for the loss of son?
What balm to which her heaviest grief must yield?
Ah! the plain, simple, ever-glorious words:
"Your son died nobly on the battle-field!"
What balm to soothe a widow's aching heart?
The grand assurance that in the battle shock
Foremost her husband stood, defying all,
For freedom and truth, unyielding as the rock.
Then, courage, all, and when the strife is past,
And grief for lost ones takes a milder hue,
This thought shall crown the living and the dead:
"He lived, he died, to God and duty true."

10. Rain has been descending most of the day, and just now is pouring
down with great violence. A happy party in the adjoining tent are
exercising their lungs on a negro melody, of which this is something
like the chorus:

"De massa run, ha, ha!
De nigger stay, ho, ho!
It mus' be now de kingdom comin',
And de year of jubelo."

I can not affirm that the music with which these gentlemen so abound, on
this rainy and dismal night, has that soothing effect on the human heart
ascribed to music in general; but, however little I may feel like
rejoicing now, I am quite sure I shall feel happier when the concert
ends. The singers have concluded the negro melody, and are breathing out
their souls in a sentimental piece. Now and then, when more than
ordinarily successful in the higher strains, they nearly equal the most
exalted efforts of the tom-cat; and then, again, in the execution of the
lower notes and more pathetic passages, we are brought nigh unto tears
by an inimitable imitation of the wailings of a very young and sick
kitten.