Читать книгу Pale Blue Light - Skip Tucker - Страница 5

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

— Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”

Hush now, or Stonewall will get you.

— Washington city mother to her fretful child

We see him now,—the old slouched hat

Cocked o’er his eye askew;

The shrewd, dry smile, the speech so pat,

So calm, so blunt, so true.

The “Blue-Light Elder” knows ’em well;

Says he, “That’s Banks,—he’s fond of shell;

Lord save his soul! we’ll give him hell,”

That’s “Stonewall Jackson’s way.”

Silence! ground arms! kneel all! caps off!

Old “Blue Light’s” going to pray.

Strangle the fool that dares to scoff!

Attention! it’s his way.

Appealing from his native sod,

“Hear us, hear us Almighty God,

Lay bare Thine arm; stretch forth Thy rod!”

That’s “Stonewall Jackson’s way.”

— John Williamson Palmer, “Stonewall Jackson’s Way”