Works
Memoir of John Yates Bell.
Maid of Northumberland.
Ballads and Madrigals.
Wreath of Eglantine, and other Poems.
The Land Where We Were Dreaming37
(From The Land We Love.)
Fair were our nation’s visions, and as grand
As ever floated out of fancy-land;
Children were we in simple faith,
But god like children, whom nor death
Nor threat of danger drove from honor’s path—
In the land where we were dreaming.
Proud were our men as pride of birth could render,
As violets our women pure and tender;
And when they spoke, their voices’ thrill
At evening hushed the whip poor-will,
At morn the mocking bird was mute and still,
In the land where we were dreaming.
And we had graves that covered more of glory
Than ever taxed the lips of ancient story;
And in our dream we wove the thread
Of principles for which had bled
And suffered long our own immortal dead,
In the land where we were dreaming.
Our sleep grew troubled, and our dreams grew wild;
Red meteors flashed across our heaven’s field,
Crimson the moon, between the Twins
Barbed arrows flew in circling lanes
Of light, red comets tossed their fiery manes
O’er the land where we were dreaming.
A figure came among us as we slept—
At first he knelt, then slowly rose and wept;
Then gathering up a thousand spears,
He swept across the field of Mars,
Then bowed farewell, and walked among the start,
From the land where we were dreaming.
We looked again—another figure still
Gave hope, and nerved each individual will;
Erect he stood, as clothed with power,
Self-poised, he seemed to rule the hour
With firm, majestic sway—of strength a tower—
In the land where we were dreaming.
As, while great Jove, in bronze, a warder god,
Gazed eastward from the Forum where he stood,
Rome felt herself secure and free—
So, Richmond! we on guard for thee,
Beheld a bronzèd hero, god-like Lee,
In the land where we were dreaming.
Woe! woe is us! the startled mothers cried;
While we have slept, our noble sons have died.
Woe! woe is us! how strange and sad,
That all our glorious visions fled
Have left us nothing real but our dead
In the land where we were dreaming.
“And are they really dead, our martyred slain?”
No, dreamers! Morn shall bid them rise again
From every plain, from every height
On which they seemed to die for right;
Their gallant spirits shall renew the fight
In the land where we were dreaming.
Footnote
37 By permission of the author.