30. Skedaddle.
The shades of night were falling fast,As through a Southern village passed
A youth, who bore, not over nice,
A banner with the gay device,
Skedaddle!
His hair was red, his toes beneath
Peeped, like an acorn from its sheath,
While with a frightened voice he sung
A burden strange to Yankee tongue,
Skedaddle!
He saw no household fire, where he
Might warm his tod or hominy;
Beyond the Cordilleras shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Skedaddle!
“Oh! stay,” a cullered pusson said,
“An‘ on dis bosom res' your hed.!”
The octoroon she winked her eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Skedaddle!
“Beware McClellan, Buell, and Banks,
Beware of Halleck's deadly ranks!”
This was the planter's last Good Night;
The chap replied, far out of sight,
Skedaddle!
At break of day, as several boys
From Maine, New-York and Illinois
Were moving Southward, in the air
They heard these accents of despair,
Skedaddle!
A chap was found, and at his side
A bottle, showing how he died,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Skedaddle!
There in the twilight, thick and grey,
Considerably played out he lay;
And through the vapor, grey and thick,
A voice fell, like a rocket-stick,
Skedaddle!
Vanity Fair.
