THOMPSON was born in Richmond, Virginia, and died in New York city. After being graduated from the University of Virginia, he studied law and made his home in Richmond. He soon turned aside from the law, however, and became editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, which Poe had edited several years earlier. Under his editorship this journal was successful. In 1863 he went abroad in search of health. While in London he wrote much for the newspapers. On his return to

America, he became the skillful literary editor of the New York Evening Post, under the management of William Cullen Bryant. He held this position until his health failed. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond. His verse has never been collected, and most of it has been obscured by the lapse of time.

MUSIC IN CAMP

Two armies covered hill and plain,
Where Rappahannock's waters
Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain
Of battle's recent slaughters.

The summer clouds lay pitched like tents
In meads of heavenly azure;

And each dread gun of the elements

Slept in its hid embrasure.

5

And now, where circling hills looked down

With cannon grimly planted,
O'er listless camp and silent town
The golden sunset slanted.

When on the fervid air there came
A strain now rich, now tender;
The music seemed itself aflame

With day's departing splendor.

A Federal band, which, eve and morn,
Played measures brave and nimble,
Had just struck up, with flute and horn
And lively clash of cymbal.

15

20

Down flocked the soldiers to the banks,

Till, margined by its pebbles,

One wooded shore was blue with " Yanks,"
And one was gray with "Rebels."

Then all was still, and then the band,

With movement light and tricksy,

Made stream and forest, hill and strand,
Reverberate with "Dixie."

5

The conscious stream with burnished glow
Went proudly o'er its pebbles,

10

The laughing ripple shoreward flew,

To kiss the shining pebbles;

Loud shrieked the swarming Boys in Blue

Defiance to the Rebels.

And yet once more the bugles sang

20