stout blade and
          courage whole,

That the morbid skill of a critic's drill in the core of a sin-sick
          soul.

Three stars that shine on the trail of life can make man's
          pathway bright,

And one is the strength of the living God, that stands in his
          heart upright,

And one is a noble woman's love, on which his heart may lean,

And one is the sight of his country's flag, to keep his courage
          keen.

Who knows the balm of the summer's calm or the chords of the
          blizzard's hymn

And finds not God in blast and breeze, his sense is strangely dim.

For he whose ear is attuned can hear the very planets sing

That the soul of man, by a God-wrought plan, is the heir of
          creation's King.

Who feels the joy of the golden days with her who shares his
          mood

In the sun-washed wastes of the prairie hills or the breaks of
          the tangled wood;

Who has won the fate of a steel-true mate, real comrade, friend
          and wife,

He tastes the kiss of Elysian bliss in instant, earthly life.

Who sees the gleam of the Stars and Stripes, on land or sea
          displayed,

Atilt in the reek of the battle-smoke or aloft o'er the marts of
          trade—

Unless his veins are the sluggish drains for the blood of a craven race.—

He will gain new life for a better strife, whatever the odds he
          face.

So that is the rede and the homely creed of one who has spelled
          it forth

In the rivers' sweep and the splendors deep of the stars of the
          hardy North;

To some, I ween, it may seem but mean; too short, too blunt, too plain,

But if those I touch who have felt as much, it will not have been
          in vain.

I. SOLDIER SONGS

DAKOTA MILITIA

(1862)

NO "scare-heads" in big city papers,

No "puffs" in Department reports,

No pictures by "special staff artists"

Of assaults on impregnable forts;

We are far from the war-vexed Potomac,

Our fights are too small to make news;

We are merely Dakota militia,

Patrolling the frontier for Sioux.

Three hundred-odd "empire builders,"

Gathered in from three hundred-odd claims,

Far scattered across the wide prairies

From Pierre to the mouth of the James.

Perhaps they seemed little or nothing,

Our losses, our toil, and our pain,

The rush of the war ponies, tearing

Through cornfields and yellowing grain;

The whoop of the hostile at midnight,

The glare of the flaming log shacks,

A beacon of hate and destruction

As we fled, with the foe at our backs;

Our women and young driven, weeping,

Exhausted, half-naked, afraid,

To the refugee huts of Vermillion

Or the sun-smitten Yankton stockade.

Small things to a Nation embattled,

But great to the pioneer band

Who are blazing the roads of the future

Through the wastes of a wilderness land.

We plod past the desolate