How changed my city was--
The grass grew in her streets,
And there were blackened ruins raw with fire;
A few old darkies crept along her ways;
The busy thunder of the drays was gone;
And ruin spoke with statue lips.
Only a glimmering candle lurked in landward windows,
Dim through shimmering shutter chinks--
Silence--silence was over all--no bells--
St. Michael's were in hiding,
And St. Philip's spoke another voice,
And rung a blatant dirge to bluecoats, far
[11]In old Virginia, with Lee's batteries.
The miles of cotton rotted on the wharfs,
And the _Swamp Angel_ belled with distant shocks
Like earthquake jars;
There was heat-lightning in the sky
That God had never made,
From our sea-island batteries;
And once a shell fell somewhere in the town
With a despairing scream that hope was dead.
Such were the streets--
And it was starving time in houses
Where fat generosity once ran amuck,
No fires in inns, no cheerful bark of hounds,
Or stroke of social hoofs upon the stones.
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