I saw them receive their orders aside, they listen'd with care, the adjutant was very grave, I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives. THE ARTILLERYMAN'S VISION. WHILE my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long, And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight passes, And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath of my infant, There in the room as I wake from sleep this vision presses upon me ; The engagement opens there and then in fantasy unreal, The skirmishers begin, they crawl cautiously ahead, I hear the irregular snap! snap! I hear the sounds of the different missiles, the short t-h-t! t-h-t! of the rifle-balls, I see the shells exploding leaving small white clouds, I hear the great shells shrieking as they pass, The grape like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees, (tumultuous now the contest rages,) All the scenes at the batteries rise in detail before me again, After firing I see him lean aside and look eagerly off to note the effect; Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging, (the young colonel leads himself this time with brandish'd sword,) I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up, no delay,) I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover low concealing all; Now a strange lull for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side, Then resumed the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls and orders of officers, While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout of applause, (some special success,) And ever the sound of the cannon far or near, (rousing even in dreams a devilish exultation and all the old mad joy in the depths of my soul,) And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions, batteries, cavalry, moving hither and thither, (The falling, dying, I heed not, the wounded dripping and red I heed not, some to the rear are hobbling,) Grime, heat, rush, aide-de-camps galloping by or on a full run, With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles, (these my vision I hear or see,) in And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-color'd rockets. ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLORS. WHO are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human, ('Tis while our army lines Carolina's sands and pines, Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia com'st to me, As under doughty Sherman I march toward the sea.) Me master years a hundred since from my parents sunder'd, No further does she say, but lingering all the day, Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her darkling eye, And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons moving by. What is it fateful woman, so blear, hardly human? Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow, red and green? Are the things so strange and marvelous you see or have seen? NOT YOUTH PERTAINS TO ME. Nor youth pertains to me, Nor delicatesse, I cannot beguile the time with talk, In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still, for learning inures not to me, Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me things inure to me, - yet there are two or three I have nourish'd the wounded and sooth'd many a dying soldier, And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp, Composed these songs. RACE of veterans RACE OF VETERANS. race of victors! Race of the soil, ready for conflict — race of the conquering march ! (No more credulity's race, abiding-temper'd race,) Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself, WORLD TAKE GOOD NOTICE. WORLD take good notice, silver stars fading, Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores. O TAN-FACED PRAIRIE-BOY. O TAN-FACED prairie-boy, Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift, Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at last among the recruits, You came, taciturn, with nothing to give — we but look'd on each other, When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me. LOOK DOWN FAIR MOON. Look down fair moon and bathe this scene, Pour softly down night's nimbus floods on faces ghastly, swollen, purple, On the dead on their backs with arms toss'd wide, Pour down your unstinted nimbus sacred moon. 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 soil'd 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, Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin. HOW SOLEMN AS ONE BY ONE. (Washington City, 1865.) How solemn as one by one, As the ranks returning worn and sweaty, as the men file by where I stand, As the faces the masks appear, as I glance at the faces studying the masks, (As I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear friend, whoever you are,) How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in the ranks, and to you, I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul, O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend, Nor the bayonet stab what you really are; The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best, AS I LAY WITH MY HEAD IN YOUR LAP CAMERADO. As I lay with my head in your lap camerado, The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air I resume, I know I am restless and make others so, I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death, For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them, I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me, I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule, And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me, DELICATE CLUSTER. DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life! Covering all my lands - all my seashores lining! Flag of death! (how I watch'd you through the smoke of battle pressing ! How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant !) Flag cerulean sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled! Ah my silvery beauty-ah my woolly white and crimson! Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty! My sacred one, my mother. DID TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN. you ask dulcet rhymes from me? Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes? Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand nor am I now; (I have been born of the same as the war was born, The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well the martial dirge, With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer's funeral ;) What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave my works, And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with piano tunes, For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me. LO, VICTRESS ON THE PEAKS. Lo, Victress on the peaks, Where thou with mighty brow regarding the world, (The world O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee,) Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all, Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee, Flauntest now unharm'd in immortal soundness and bloom-lo, in these hours supreme, No poem proud, I chanting bring to thee, nor mastery's rapturous verse, But a cluster containing night's darkness and blood-dripping wounds, And psalms of the dead. |