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The battle begins and goes against us, behold through the smoke

Washington's face,

The brigade of Virginia and Maryland have march'd forth to intercept the enemy,

They are cut off, murderous artillery from the hills plays upon

them,

Rank after rank falls, while over them silently droops the flag,
Baptized that day in many a young man's bloody wounds,
In death, defeat, and sisters', mothers' tears.

Ah, hills and slopes of Brooklyn! I perceive you are more valuable/ than your owners supposed;

In the midst of you stands an encampment very old,
Stands forever the camp of that dead brigade.

CAVALRY CROSSING A FORD.

A LINE in long array where they wind betwixt green islands, They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun-hark to the musical clank,

Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink,

Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the negligent rest on the saddles,

Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford - while,

Scarlet and blue and snowy white,

The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.

BIVOUAC ON A MOUNTAIN SIDE.

I SEE before me now a traveling army halting,

Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of

summer,

Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising

high,

Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily

seen,

The numerous camp-fires scatter'd near and far, some away up on the mountain,

The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering,

And over all the sky-the sky! far, far out of reach, studded, breaking out, the eternal stars.

AN ARMY CORPS ON THE MARCH.

WITH its cloud of skirmishers in advance,

With now the sound of a single shot snapping like a whip, and now an irregular volley,

The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press

on,

Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun the dust-cover❜d men,
In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground,
With artillery interspers'd- the wheels rumble, the horses sweat,
As the army corps advances.

BY THE BIVOUAC'S FITFUL FLAME.

By the bivouac's fitful flame,

A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow-but first I note,

The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline,

The darkness lit by spots of kindled fire, the silence,

Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving,

The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily watching me,)

While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,

Of life and death, of home and the past and loved, and of those that are far away;

A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,
By the bivouac's fitful flame.

COME UP FROM THE FIELDS FATHER.

COME up from the fields father, here's a letter from our Pete,
And come to the front door mother, here's a letter from thy dear

son.

Lo, 'tis autumn,

Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,

Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind,

Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and grapes on the trellis'd

vines,

(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?

Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?)

Above all, lo, the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, and

with wondrous clouds,

Below too, all calm, all vital and beautiful, and the farm prospers well.

Down in the fields all prospers well,

But now from the fields come father, come at the daughter's call, And come to the entry mother, to the front door come right away.

Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her steps trembling,

She does not tarry to smooth her hair nor adjust her cap.

Open the envelope quickly,

O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is sign'd,

O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken mother's soul! All swims before her eyes, flashes with black, she catches the main words only,

Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital,

At present low, but will soon be better.

Ah now the single figure to me,

Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and farms, Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint,

By the jamb of a door leans.

Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks through her sobs,

The little sisters huddle around speechless and dismay'd,)

See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.

Alas poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be better, that brave and simple soul,)

While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,

The only son is dead.

But the mother needs to be better,

She with thin form presently drest in black,

By day her meals untouch'd, then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,

In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing, O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and

withdraw,

To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.

VIGIL STRANGE I KEPT ON THE FIELD ONE NIGHT.

VIGIL strange I kept on the field one night;

When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day, One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look I shall never forget,

One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach'd up as you lay on the ground,

Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,

Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made my

way,

Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,) your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the moderate night-wind,

Bared

Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battlefield spreading,

Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night, But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed, Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my chin in my hands,

Passing

Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest comrade not a tear, not a word,

Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my

soldier,

As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole,

› Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death,

I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall surely meet again,)

Til at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear'd,

My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form, Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and carefully under feet,

And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited,

Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field dim,

Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)

Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day brighten'd,

I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his

blanket,

And buried him where he fell.

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A MARCH IN THE RANKS HARD-PREST, AND THE ROAD UNKNOWN.

A MARCH in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,

A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness, Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating, Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,

We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dimlighted building,

'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital,

Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made,

Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,

And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and clouds of smoke,

By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some in the pews laid down,

At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen,)

I stanch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a lily,)

Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all,

Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity, some of them dead,

Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, the odor of blood,

The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside/ also fill'd,

Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death-spasm sweating,

An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls, The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the torches,

These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odor,
Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in;
But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives

he me,

Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness,

Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks, The unknown road still marching.

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