Not yet has the martial horizon grown dun,
Not yet has the terrible conflict begun:
But the tumult of legions,--the rush and the roar,
Break over our borders, like waves on the shore.
Along the Potomac, the confident foe
Stands marshalled for onset,--prepared, at a blow,
To vanquish the daring rebellion, and fling
Utter ruin at once on the arrogant thing!

How sovran the silence that broods o'er the sky,
And ushers the twenty-first morn of July;
--Date, written in fire on history's scroll,--
--Date, drawn in deep blood-lines on many a soul!

There is quiet at Beechenbrook: Alice's brow
Is wearing a Sabbath tranquility now,
As softly she reads from the page on her knee,--
"Thou wilt keep him in peace who is stayed upon Thee!"
When Sophy bursts breathlessly into the room,--
"Oh! mother! we hear it,--we hear it!.., the boom
Of the fast and the fierce cannonading!--it shook
The ground till it trembled, along by the brook."

One instant the listener sways in her seat,--
The paralysed heart has forgotten to beat;
The next, with the speed and the frenzy of fear,
She gains the green hillock, and pauses to hear.

Again and again the reverberant sound
Is fearfully felt in the tremulous ground;