POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL
On Sumter’s rampart, that sweet night,
Leaning beside the shattered wall,
Thy gentle face, so fair and bright,
Kept me, dear love, within thy thrall.
I turned from wrecks of storm and strife
To thee— within some distant home;
I felt that all my fate and life
Were thine, wherever I must roam.
A glory has come o’er my days
In dreaming noblest dreams of thee;
Beyond the rampart, how my gaze
Went proudly o’er the Southern sea!
And dreams like mine can still defy
Even the tempest of distrust;
I know that they shall never die
Because they are not of the dust.
Dear love! though dreams may wither here,
They are upgathered from the sod,
And we shall see them reappear
In the long summer time of God!
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