BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN SIDE.


I see before me now a traveling army halting,
Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer,
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising
high,
Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily
seen,
The numerous camp-fires scatter'd near and far, some away up on the
mountain,
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized,
flickering,
And over all the sky--the sky! far, far out of reach, studded,
breaking out, the eternal stars.



AN ARMY CORPS ON THE MARCH.


With its cloud of skirmishers in advance,
With now the sound of a single shot snapping like a whip, and now an
irregular volley,
The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on,
Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun--the dust-cover'd men,
In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground,
With artillery interspers'd--the wheels rumble, the horses sweat,
As the army corps advances.