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RECONCILIATION.

WORD Over all, beautiful as the sky!

Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;

That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly, softly, wash again, and ever again, this

soiled world:

-For my enemy is dead- -a man divine as myself is dead;

I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin -I draw near;

I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

IN MIDNIGHT SLEEP.

I.

IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish,

Of the look at first of the mortally wounded-of that indescribable look;

Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide, I dream, I dream, I dream.

2.

Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains;

Of skies, so beauteous after a storm-and at night the moon so unearthly bright,

Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather the heaps,

I dream, I dream, I dream.

3.

Long, long have they passed-faces and trenches and fields

Where through the carnage I moved with a cailous composure- —or away from the fallen

Onward I sped at the time-But now of their forms at

night

I dream, I dream, I dream.

CAMPS OF GREEN.

NOT alone those camps of white, O soldiers,
When, as ordered forward, after a long march,
Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessened, we
halted for the night;

Some of us so fatigued, carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in our tracks;

Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up began to sparkle;

Outposts of pickets posted, surrounding, alert through. the dark,

And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety; Till, to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums,

We rose up refreshed, the night and sleep passed over, and resumed our journey,

Or proceeded to battle.

Lo! the camps of the tents of green,

Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling,

With a mystic army, (is it too ordered forward? is it too only halting awhile

Till night and sleep pass over?)

Now in those camps of green-in their tents dotting the world;

In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them-in the old and young,

Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moonlight, content and silent there at last, Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of all, Of corps and generals all, and the President over the corps and generals all,

And of each of us, O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we fought,

There without hatred we shall all meet.

For presently, O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the bivouac-camps of green;

X

But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the

countersign,

Nor drummer to beat the morning drum.

THE MOTHER OF ALL.

PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All, Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing

(As the last gun ceased-but the scent of the powdersmoke lingered;)

As she called to her earth with mournful voice while she

stalked:

"Absorb them well, O my earth," she cried-" I charge you, lose. not my sons! lose not an atom; And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood;

And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly,

And all you essences of soil and growth—and you, my rivers' depths;

And you, mountain-sides-and the woods where my dear children's blood, trickling, reddened; And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future trees,

My dead absorb-my young men's beautiful bodies absorb-and their precious, precious, precious blood;

Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a year hence,

In unseen essence and odour of surface and grass, centuries hence;

In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings-give my immortal heroes;

Exhale me them centuries hence-breathe me their breath-let not an atom be lost.

O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!

Exhale them perennial, sweet death.1 years, centuries hence."

1 Sic in all the editions: should it be "earth"?

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
(FOR THE DEATH OF LINCOLN).

I.

O CAPTAIN ! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red

Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead!

2.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck

You've fallen cold and dead.

3.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor

will;

The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship comes in with object

won.

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S BURIAL HYMN.

I.

WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed, And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,

I mourned and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring; Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,

And thought of him I love.

2.

O powerful, western, fallen star!

O shades of night! O moody, tearful night!

O great star disappeared! O the black murk that hides

the star!

O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me !

O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul!

3.

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-washed palings,

Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,

With many a pointed blossom, rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,

With

every leaf a miracle: and from this bush in the door-yard,

With delicate-coloured blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves

of rich green,

A sprig, with its flower, I break.

4.

In the swamp, in secluded recesses,

A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

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