But, when I told the laddie that I too was from the South,
Water came into his dim eyes, and quivers around his mouth;
"Do you know the Blue-Grass country?" he wistfully began to say;
Then swayed like a willow sapling, and fainted dead away.
I had him into the log-house, and worked and brought him to;
I fed him, and I coaxed him, as I thought his mother'd do;
And, when the lad got better, and the noise in his head was gone,
Morgan's men were miles away, galloping, galloping on.
"O, I must go," he muttered; "I must be up and away!
Morgan, Morgan is waiting for me! O, what will Morgan say?"
But I heard the sound of tramping, and kept him back from the
door--
The ringing sound of horses' hoofs that I had heard before.
And on, on came the soldiers--the Michigan cavalry--
And fast they rode, and back they looked, galloping rapidly;
They had followed hard on Morgan's track; they had followed day
and night;
But of Morgan and Morgan's raiders they had never caught a sight.
And rich Ohio sat startled through all these summer days;
For strange, wild men were galloping over her broad highways;
Now here, now there, now seen, now gone, now north, now east,
now west,
Through river-valleys and corn-land farms, sweeping away her
best.
A bold ride and a long ride! But they were taken at last;
They had almost reached the river by galloping hard and fast;
But the boys in blue were upon them ere ever they gained the
ford,
And Morgan, Morgan the raider, laid down his terrible sword.
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