Up from the meadows, rich with com,
Clear in the cool
September mom,
Green-walled by the
hills of Maryland .
Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple and peach-tree fruited deep,
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,
On that pleasant mom of the early fall,
When Lee marched over
the mountain wall-
Horse and foot into Frederick town.
Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with
their crimson bars,
Of noon looked down
and saw not one.
Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her
four-score years and ten;
She took up the flag
the men hauled down;
In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one
heart was loyal yet.
Stonewall Jackson
riding ahead.
Under his slouched hat, left and right,
He glanced-the old flag met his sight:
"Halt !"-the dust-brown ranks stood fast.
"Fire!"-outblazed the rifle blast;
It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.
Quick. as it fell, from the broken staff,
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf:
She leaned far out on the window-sill
And shook it forth with a royal wiII.
"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag," she said.
A shade of sadness. a blush of shame
Over the face of the ieader came;
The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman's deed and word:
"Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!" he said.
All day long through Frederick Street
Sounded the tread of marching feet;
All day long that free flag tossed
Over the heads of the rebel host.
Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;
And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it with a warm good-night.
Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,
And the rebel rides on his raids no more,
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.
Over Barbara Frietchie's grave
Flag of freedom and
union wave'
Round thy symbol of
light and law;
And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick
town.
John Greenleaf Whittier.
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