Old Fort Phantom Hill

On the breezy Texas border, on the prairies far away,
Where the antelope is grazing and the Spanish ponies play;
Where the tawny cattle wander through the golden incensed hours,
And the sunlight woos a landscape clothed in royal robes of flowers;
Where the Elm and Clear Fork mingle, as they journey to the sea,
And the night-wind sobs sad stories o'er a wild and lonely lea;
Where of old the dusky savage and the shaggy bison trod,
And the reverent plains are sleeping 'midst drowsy dreams of God;
Where the twilight loves to linger, e'er night's sable robes are cast
'Round grim-ruined, spectral chimneys, telling stories of the past,
There upon an airy mesa, close beside a whispering rill
There to-day you'll find the ruins of the Old Fort Phantom Hill.

Years ago, so runs the legend, 'bout the year of Fifty-three,
This old fort was first established by the gallant soldier, Lee;
And to-day the restless spirits of his proud and martial band
Haunt those ghostly, gloomy chimneys in the Texas border land.
There once every year at midnight, when the chilling Northers roar,
And the storm-kind breathes its thunder from the heights of Labrador,
When the vaulted gloom re-echoes with the owls—"whit-tu-whoo!"
And the stealthy cayote answers with his lonely, long "ki-oo!"
Then strange phantoms flit in silence through that weeping mesquite vale,
And the reveilles come sounding o'er the old McKenzie Trail,
Then the muffled drums beat muster and the bugles sadly trill,
And the vanished soldiers gather 'round the heights of Phantom Hill.

Then pale bivouac fires are lighted and those gloomy chimneys glow,
While the grizzled veterans muster from the taps of long ago,
Lee and Johnston and McKenzie, Grant and Jackson, Custer, too,
Gather there in peaceful silence waiting for their last review;
Blue and gray at length united on the high redoubts of fame,
Soldiers all in one grand army, that will answer in God's name.
Yes, they rest on heights of glory in that fair, celestial world,
"Where the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle-flags are furled."
And to-day the birds are singing where was heard the cannons' roar,
For the gentle doves are nesting 'midst those ruins of the war.
Yes, the mocking-birds re-echo: "Peace on earth, to men good will,"
And the "swords are turned to ploughshares" in the land of Phantom Hill.