The keen wind whistles through its teeth,
And the white skull goes bounding by
Looking for Death.
H.A.
THE BLOCKADE RUNNER
I
Three years!
Since I had seen the city, in the time
We waited through the tenseness of the hours,
While nerves were zither strings
For fate to jar upon:
All through that night we counted old St. Michael's chimes
Now three o'clock--
The bells spoke as they had on marriage days,
With high and silver-happy tongues
Yet somehow they had gained an irony,
For out across the quiet April bay
Grim, new-built forts grinned at old Sumter
Through the morning mist--
_One--two--three--four--_
And no sound yet! Then--
Thirty minutes like a life too long;
A red flash dirked the night;
I thought a voice cried, "DOOM";
That was the gun that killed a million men.
God! How the city woke!
With what a rush of wonder in her streets,
"_Burr_" of strained voices, earthquakes of feet,
Tramping to rolling drums,
The crowd swept to the Battery.
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