Do you remember, my sweet, absent son,How in the soft June days forever doneYou loved the heavens so warm and clear and high;And when I lifted you, soft came your cry,—"Put me 'way up—'way, 'way up in blue sky"?
I laughed and said I could not;—set you down,Your gray eyes wonder-filled beneath that crownOf bright hair gladdening me as you raced by.Another Father now, more strong than I,Has borne you voiceless to your dear blue sky.
(FRANCIS HAWTHORNE LATHROP)FEBRUARY 6, 1881
(FRANCIS HAWTHORNE LATHROP)FEBRUARY 6, 1881
Come not again! I dwell with youAbove the realm of frost and dew,Of pain and fire, and growth to death.I dwell with you where never breathIs drawn, but fragrance vital flowsFrom life to life, even as a roseUnseen pours sweetness through each veinAnd from the air distills again.You are my rose unseen; we liveWhere each to other joy may giveIn ways untold, by means unknownAnd secret as the magnet-stone.
For which of us, indeed, is dead?No more I lean to kiss your head—The gold-red hair so thick upon it;Joy feels no more the touch that won itWhen o'er my brow your pearl-cool palmIn tenderness so childish, calm,Crept softly, once. Yet, see, my armIs strong, and still my blood runs warm.I still can work, and think and weep.But all this show of life I keepIs but the shadow of your shine,Flicker of your fire, husk of your vine;
Therefore, you are not dead, nor I
Who hear your laughter's minstrelsy.Among the stars your feet are set;Your little feet are dancing yetTheir rhythmic beat, as when on earth.So swift, so slight are death and birth!
Come not again, dear child. If thouBy any chance couldst break that vowOf silence at thy last hour made;If to this grim life unafraidThou couldst return, and melt the frostWherein thy bright limbs' power was lost;Still would I whisper—since so fairThis silent comradeship we share—Yes, whisper 'mid the unbidden rainOf tears: "Come not, come not again!"
Birds that like vanishing visions go winging,White, white in the flame of the sunset's burning,Fly with the wild spray the billows are flinging,Blend, blend with the nightfall, and fade, unreturning!
Fire of the heaven, whose splendor all-glowingSoon, soon shall end, and in darkness must perish;Sea-bird and flame-wreath and foam lightly blowing;—Soon, soon tho' we lose you, your beauty we cherish.
Visions may vanish, the sweetest, the dearest;Hush'd, hush'd be the voice of love's echo replying;Spirits may leave us that clung to us nearest:—Love, love, only love dwells with us undying!
(A REPLY)
(A REPLY)
Yes, I was wrong about the phoebe-bird.Two songs it has, and both of them I've heard:I did not know those strains of joy and sorrowCame from one throat, or that each note could borrowStrength from the other, making one more braveAnd one as sad as rain-drops on a grave.
But thus it is. Two songs have men and maidens:One is for hey-day, one is sorrow's cadence.Our voices vary with the changing seasonsOf life's long year, for deep and natural reasons.Therefore despair not. Think not you have altered,If, at some time, the gayer note has faltered.We are as God has made us. Gladness, pain,Delight and death, and moods of bliss or bane,With love and hate, or good and evil—all,At separate times, in separate accents call;Yet 't is the same heart-throb within the breastThat gives an impulse to our worst and best.I doubt not when our earthly cries are ended,The Listener finds them in one music blended.
For them that hope in Thee.... Thou shalt hidethem in the secret of Thy face, from the disturbance of men.
Thou shalt protect them in Thy tabernacle from thecontradiction of tongues.
Blessed be the Lord, for He hath shewn His wonderfulmercy to me in a fortified city.—Psalm xxx.
Beauty and splendor were on every hand:Yet strangely crawled dark shadows down the lanes,Twisting across the fields, like dragon-shapesThat smote the air with blackness, and devouredThe life of light, and choked the smiling worldTill it grew livid with a sudden age—The death of hope.
O squandered happiness;Vain dust of misery powdering life's fresh flower!The sky was holy, but the earth was not.
Men ruled, but ruled in vain; since wretchednessOf soul and body, for the mass of men,Made them like dead leaves in an idle driftAround the plough of progress as it droveSharp through the glebe of modern days, to plantA civilized world. Ay; civilized—but not Christian!
Civilization is a clarion voiceCrying in the wilderness; a prophet-wordStill unfulfilled. And lo, along the waysCrowded with nations, there arose a strife;Disturbance of men; tongues contradicting tongues;Madness of noise, that scattered multitudes;A trample of blind feet, beneath whose treadTruth's bloom shrank withered; while incessant mouthsHowled "Progress! Change!"—as though all moods of changeWere fiats of truth eternal.
'Mid the dinTwo pilgrims, faring forward, saw the lightIn a strong city, fortified, and movedPatiently thither. "All your steps are vain,"Cried scoffers. "There is mercy in the world;But chiefly mercy of man to man. For weAre good. We help our fellows, when we can.Our charity is enormous. Look at theseLong rolls of rich subscriptions. We are good.'T is true, God's mercy plays a part in things;But most is left to us; and we judge well.Stay with us in the field of endless war!Here only is health. Yon city fortifiedYou dream of—why, its ramparts are as dust.It gives no safety. One assaulting sweepOf our huge cohorts would annul its power—Crush it in atoms; make it meaningless."
The pilgrims listened; but onward still they moved.They passed the gates; they stood upon a hillEnclosed, but in that strong enclosure free!Though earth opposed, they held the key to heaven.On came the turbulent multitude in war,Dashing against the city's walls; and sweptThrough all the streets, and robbed and burned and killed.The walls were strong; the gates were always open.And so the invader rioted, and was proud.But sudden, in seeming triumph, the enemy hostWas stricken with death; and still the city stayed.Skyward the souls of its defenders rose,Returning soon in mist intangibleThat flashed with radiance of half-hidden swords;And those who still assaulted—though they creptInto the inmost vantage-points, with craft—Fell, blasted namelessly by this veiled flash,Even as they shouted out, "The place is ours!"
So those two pilgrims dwelt there, fortifiedIn that strong city men had thought so frail.They died, and lived again. Fiercest attackWas as a perfumed breeze to them, which drewTheir souls still closer unto God. And thereBeauty and splendor bloomed untouched. The starsSpoke to them, bidding them be of good cheer,Though hostile hordes rushed over them in blood.And still the prayers of all that people roseAs incense mingled with music of their hearts.For Christ was with them: angels were their aid.What though the enemy used their open gates?The children of the citadel conquered allTheir conquerors, smiting them with the pure lightThat shone in that strong city fortified.
Seaward, at morn, my doves flew free;At eve they circled back to me.The first was Faith; the second, Hope;The third—the whitest—Charity.
Above the plunging surge's playDream-like they hovered, day by day.At last they turned, and bore to meGreen signs of peace thro' nightfall gray.
No shore forlorn, no loveliest landTheir gentle eyes had left unscanned,'Mid hues of twilight-heliotropeOr daybreak fires by heaven-breath fanned.
Quick visions of celestial grace,—Hither they waft, from earth's broad space,Kind thoughts for all humanity.They shine with radiance from God's face.
Ah, since my heart they choose for home,Why loose them,—forth again to roam?Yet look: they rise! with loftier scopeThey wheel in flight toward heaven's pure dome.
Fly, messengers that find no restSave in such toil as makes man blest!Your home is God's immensity:We hold you but at his behest.
The soul of a nation awaking,—High visions of daybreak,—I saw;A people renewed; the forsakingOf sin, and the worship of law.
Sing, pine-tree; shout, to the hoarserResponse of the jubilant sea!Rush, river, foam-flecked like a courser;Warn all who are honest and free!
Our birth-star beckons to trialThe faith of the far-fled years,Ere scorn was our share, and denial,Or laughter for patriots' tears.
And Faith shall come forth the finer,From trampled thickets of fire,And the orient open divinerBefore her, the heaven rise higher.
O deep, sweet eyes, but severerThan steel! See you yet, where he comes—Our hero? Bend your glance nearer;Speak, Faith! For, as wakening drums,
Your voice shall set his blood stirring;His heart shall grow strong like the mainWhen the rowelled winds are spurring,And the broad tides landward strain.
O hero, art thou among us?O helper, hidest thou, still?Why hast thou no anthem sung us,Why workest thou not our will?
For a smirk of the face, or a favor,Still shelters the cheat where he crawls;And the truth we began with needs braverUpholders, and loftier walls.
Too long has the land's soul slumberedIn wearying dreams of gain,With prosperous falsity cumberedAnd dulled with bribes, as a bane.
Yes, cunning is civilized evil,And crafty the gold-baited snare;But virtue, in fiery upheaval,May cast fine device to the air.
Bring us the simple and stalwartPurpose of earlier days.Come! Far better than all were't—Our precepts, our pride, and our lays—
That the people in spirit should trembleWith heed of the God-given Word;That we cease from our boast, nor dissemble,But follow where truth's voice is heard.
Come to us, mountain-dweller,Leader, wherever thou art;Skilled from thy cradle, a quellerOf serpents, and sound to the heart!
Modest and mighty and tender;Man of an iron mold;Honest, fine-grained, our defender;—American-souled!
[Read before the Sons of the Revolution, New-York, February 22, 1887]
[Read before the Sons of the Revolution, New-York, February 22, 1887]
Sons of the youth and the truth of the nation,Ye that are met to remember the manWhose valor gave birth to a people's salvation,Honor him now; set his name in the van.A nobleness to try for,A name to live and die for—The name of Washington.
Calmly his face shall look down through the ages—Sweet yet severe with a spirit of warning;Charged with the wisdom of saints and of sages;Quick with the light of a life-giving morning.A majesty to try for,A name to live and die for—The name of Washington!
Though faction may rack us, or party divide us,And bitterness break the gold links of our story,Our father and leader is ever beside us.Live, and forgive! But forget not the gloryOf him whose height we try for,A name to live and die for—The name of Washington!
Still in his eyes shall be mirrored our fleetingDays, with the image of days long ended;Still shall those eyes give, immortally, greetingUnto the souls from his spirit descended.His grandeur we will try for,His name we 'll live and die for—The name of Washington!
Ah, who shall sound the hero's funeral march?And what shall be the music of his dirge?No single voice may chant the Nation's grief,No formal strain can give its woe relief.The pent-up anguish of the loyal wife,The sobs of those who, nearest in this life,Still hold him closely in the life beyond;—These first, with threnody of memories fond.But look! Forth press a myriad mourners thronging,With hearts that throb in sorrow's exaltation,Moved by a strange, impassioned, hopeless longingTo serve him with their love's last ministration.Make way! Make way, from wave-bound verge to vergeOf all our land, that this great multitudeWith lamentation proud albeit subdued,Deep murmuring like the ocean's mighty surge,May pass beneath the heavens' triumphal arch!
What is the sound we hear?Never the fall of a tear;For grief repressedIn every breastMore honors the man we revere.Rising from East and West,There echoes afar or near—From the cool, sad North and the burning South—A sound long since grown dear,When brave ranks faced the cannon's mouthAnd died for a faith austere:The tread of marching men,A steady tramp of feetThat never flinched nor faltered whenThe drums of duty beat.With sable hats whose shadeFalls from the cord of goldOn every time-worn face;With tattered flags, in black enrolled,Beneath whose folds they warred of old;Forward, firmly arrayed,With a sombre, martial grace;So the Grand Army movesCommanded by the dead,Following him whose name it loves,Whose voice in life its footsteps led.
Those that in the combat perished,—Hostile shapes and forms of friends,—Those we hated, those we cherished,Meet the pageant where it ends.Flash of steel and tears forgivingBlend in splendor. Hark, the knell!Comrades ghostly join the living—Dreaming, chanting: "All is well."They receive the General sleeping,Him of spirit pure and large:Him they draw into their keepingEvermore, in faithful charge.
Pass on, O steps, with your dead, sad note!For a people's homage is in the sound;And the even tread, in measured rote,As a leader is laid beneath the ground,Rumors the hum of a pilgrim trainThat shall trample the earth as tramples the rain,Seeking the door of the hero's tomb,Seeking him where he lies low in the gloom,Paying him tribute of worker and mage,Through age on age!
Tall pine-tree on McGregor's height,How didst thou grow to such a lofty bearing,For song of bird or beat of breeze uncaring,There where thy shadow touched the dying brow?Were all thy sinewy fibres shaped aright?Was there no flaw? With what mysterious daringDidst thou put forth each murmuring, odorous boughAnd trust it to the frail support of air?We only know that thou art now supreme:We know not how thou grewest so tall and fair.So from the unnoticed, humble earth aroseThe sturdy man whom we, bewailing, deemWorthy the wondrous name fame's far voice blows.And lo! his ancient foesRise up to praise the planOf modest grandeur, loyal trust,And generous power from man to man,That lifted him above the formless dust.O heart by kindliness betrayed,O noble spirit snared and strayed—Unmatched, upright thou standest stillAs that firm pine-tree rooted on the hill!
No paragon was he,But moulded in the roughWith every fault and scarIngrained, and plain for all to see:Even as the rocks and mountains are,Common perhaps, yet wrought of such true stuffThat common nature in his essence grewTo something which till then it never knew;Ay, common as a vast, refreshing windThat sweeps the continent, or as some starWhich, 'mid a million, shines out well-defined:With honest soul on duty bent,A servant-soldier, President;Meekest when crowned with victory,And greatest in adversity!
A silent man whom, strangely, fateMade doubly silent ere he died,His speechless spirit rules us still;And that deep spell of influence mute,The majesty of dauntless willThat wielded hosts and saved the State,Seems through the mist our spirits yet to thrill.His heart is with us! From the rootOf toil and pain and brave enduranceHas sprung at last the perfect fruit,The treasure of a rich assuranceThat men who nobly work and liveA greater gift than life may give;Yielding a promise for all time,Which other men of newer dateSurely redeem in deeds sublime.Forerunner of a valiant race,His voiceless spirit still reminds usOf ever-waiting, silent duty:The bond of faith wherewith he binds usShall hold us ready hour by hourTo serve the sacred, guiding powerWhene'er it calls, where'er it finds us,With loyalty that, like a folded flower,Blooms at a touch in proud, full-circled beauty.
Like swelling river waves that strain,Onward the people crowdIn serried, billowing train.And those so slow to yield,On many a hard fought field,Muster togetherLike a dark cloudIn summer weather,Whose threatening thunders suddenly are stilled,—And all the world is filledWith smiling rest. Victory to him was pain,Till he had won his enemies by love;Had leashed the eagle and unloosed the dove;Setting on war's red roll the argent seal of peace.So here they form their solid ranks again,But in no mood of hatred or disdain.They say: "Thou who art fallen at last,Beleaguered stealthily, o'ercome by death,Thy conqueror now shall be magnanimousEven as thou wast to us.But not for thee can we blot out the past:We would not, if we might, forget thy lastGreat act of war, that with a gentle handBrought back our hearts unto the mighty mother,For whose defence and honor armed we stand.We hail thee brother,And so salute thy name with holy breath!"
Land of the hurricane!Land of the avalanche!Land of tempest and rain;Of the Southern sun and of frozen peaks;Stretching from main to main;—Land of the cypress-glooms;Land of devouring looms;Land of the forest and ranch;—Hush every sound to-daySave the burden of swarms that assembleTheir reverence dear to payUnto him who saved us all!Ye masses that mourn with bended head,Beneath whose feet the ground doth trembleWith weight of woe and a sacred dread—Lift up the pallThat to us shall remain as a warrior's banner!Gaze once more on the fast closed eyes;Mark once the mouth that never speaks;Think of the man and his quiet manner:Weep if you will; then go your way;But remember his face as it looks to the skies,And the dumb appeal wherewith it seeksTo lead us on, as one should say, "Arise—Go forth to meet your country's noblest day!"
Ah, who shall sound the hero's funeral march?And what shall be the music of his dirge?Let generations sing, as they emergeAnd pass beneath the heavens' trumphal arch!
Veteran memories rally to musterHere at the call of the old battle days:Cavalry clatter and cannon's hoarse bluster:All the wild whirl of the fight's broken maze:Clangor of bugle and flashing of sabre,Smoke-stifled flags and the howl of the shell,With earth for a rest place and death for a neighbor,And dreams of a charge and the deep rebel yell.Stern was our task in the field where the reapingSpared the ripe harvest, but laid our men low:Grim was the sorrow that held us from weeping:Awful the rush of the strife's ebb and flow.Swift came the silence—our enemy hidingSudden retreat in the cloud-muffled night:Swift as a hawk-pounce our hill-and-dale riding;Hundreds on hundreds we caught in their flight!Hard and incessant the danger and trial,Laid on our squadrons, that gladly bore all,Scorning to meet with delay or denialThe summons that rang in the battle-days' call!
Wild days that woke to glory or despair,And smote the coward soul with sudden shame,But unto those whose hearts were bold to dareAll things for honor brought eternal fame:—Lost days, undying days!With undiminished raysHere now on us look down,Illumining our crownOf leaves memorial, wet with tender dewFor those who nobly diedIn fierce self-sacrifice of service true,Rapt in pure fire of life-disdaining pride;Men of this soil, who stoodFirm for their country's good,From night to night, from sun to sun,Till o'er the living and the slainA woful dawn that streamed with rainWept for their victory dearly won.
Days of the future, prophetic days,—Silence engulfs the roar of war;Yet, through all coming years, repeat the praiseOf those leal comrades brave, who come no more!And when our voices cease,Long, long renew the chant, the anthem proud,Which, echoing clear and loudThrough templed aisles of peace,Like blended tumults of a joyous chime,Shall tell their valor to a later time.Shine on this field; and in the eyes of menRekindle, if the need shall come again,That answering light that springsIn beaconing splendor from the soul, and bringsPromise of faith well kept and deed sublime!
[CHANCELLORSVILLE, MAY, 1863]
[CHANCELLORSVILLE, MAY, 1863]
The sun had set;The leaves with dew were wet:Down fell a bloody duskOn the woods, that second of May,Where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of prey,Tore through, with angry tusk.
"They've trapped us, boys!"—Rose from our flank a voice.With a rush of steel and smokeOn came the rebels straight,Eager as love and wild as hate;And our line reeled and broke;
Broke and fled.No one stayed—but the dead!With curses, shrieks, and cries,Horses and wagons and menTumbled back through the shuddering glen,And above us the fading skies.
There's one hope, still—Those batteries parked on the hill!"Battery, wheel!" ('mid the roar)"Pass pieces; fix prolonge to fireRetiring. Trot!" In the panic direA bugle rings "Trot"—and no more.
The horses plunged,The cannon lurched and lunged,To join the hopeless rout.But suddenly rode a formCalmly in front of the human storm,With a stern, commanding shout:
"Align those guns!"(We knew it was Pleasonton's.)The cannoneers bent to obey,And worked with a will at his word:And the black guns moved as iftheyhad heard.But ah, the dread delay!
"To wait is crime;O God, for ten minutes' time!"The General looked around.There Keenan sat, like a stone,With his three hundred horse alone,Less shaken than the ground.
"Major, your men?""Are soldiers, General." "Then,Charge, Major! Do your best:Hold the enemy back, at all cost,Till my guns are placed;—else the army is lost.You die to save the rest!"
By the shrouded gleam of the western skies,Brave Keenan looked into Pleasonton's eyesFor an instant—clear, and cool, and still;Then, with a smile, he said: "I will."
"Cavalry, charge!" Not a man of them shrank.Their sharp, full cheer, from rank on rank,Rose joyously, with a willing breath—-Rose like a greeting hail to death.
Then forward they sprang, and spurred and clashed;Shouted the officers, crimson-sash'd;Rode well the men, each brave as his fellow,In their faded coats of the blue and yellow;And above in the air, with an instinct true,Like a bird of war their pennon flew.
With clank of scabbards and thunder of steeds,And blades that shine like sunlit reeds,And strong brown faces bravely paleFor fear their proud attempt shall fail,Three hundred Pennsylvanians closeOn twice ten thousand gallant foes.
Line after line the troopers cameTo the edge of the wood that was ring'd with flame;Rode in and sabred and shot—and fell;Nor came one back his wounds to tell.And full in the midst rose Keenan, tall,In the gloom like a martyr awaiting his fall,While the circle-stroke of his sabre, swung'Round his head, like a halo there, luminous hung.
Line after line, aye, whole platoons,Struck dead in their saddles, of brave dragoonsBy the maddened horses were onward borneAnd into the vortex flung, trampled and torn;As Keenan fought with his men, side by side.
So they rode, till there were no more to ride.
But over them, lying there shattered and mute,What deep echo rolls?—'T is a death-salute,From the cannon in place; for heroes, you bravedYour fate not in vain: the army was saved!
Over them now—year following year—Over their graves the pine-cones fall,And the whip-poor-will chants his spectre-call;But they stir not again: they raise no cheer:They have ceased. But their glory shall never cease,Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace.The rush of their charge is resounding stillThat saved the army at Chancellorsville.
"There, on the left!" said the colonel: the battlehad shuddered and faded away,Wraith of a fiery enchantment that left onlyashes and blood-sprinkled clay—"Ride to the left and examine that ridge, wherethe enemy's sharpshooters stood.Lord, how they picked off our men, from thetreacherous vantage-ground of the wood!But for their bullets, I'll bet, my batteries sentthem something as good.Go and explore, and report to me then, and tellme how many we killed.Never a wink shall I sleep till I know our vengeancewas duly fulfilled."
Fiercely the orderly rode down the slope of thecorn-field—scarred and forlorn,Rutted by violent wheels, and scathed by theshot that had plowed it in scorn;Fiercely, and burning with wrath for the sightof his comrades crushed at a blow,Flung in broken shapes on the ground likeruined memorials of woe:These were the men whom at daybreak he knew,but never again could know.Thence to the ridge, where roots outthrust, andtwisted branches of treesClutched the hill like clawing lions, firm theirprey to seize.
"What's your report?"—and the grim colonelsmiled when the orderly came back at last.Strangely the soldier paused: "Well, they werepunished." And strange his face, aghast."Yes, our fire told on them; knocked over fifty—laid out in line of parade.Brave fellows, colonel, to stay as they did! Butone I 'most wish had n't stayed.Mortally wounded, he'd torn off his knapsack;and then at the end he prayed—Easy to see, by his hands that were clasped;and the dull, dead fingers yet heldThis little letter—his wife's—from the knapsack.A pity those woods were shelled!"
Silent the orderly, watching with tears in his eyesas his officer scannedFour short pages of writing. "What's this, about'Marthy Virginia's hand'?"Swift from his honeymoon he, the dead soldier,had gone from his bride to the strife;Never they met again, but she had written him,telling of that new life,Born in the daughter, that bound her still closerand closer to him as his wife.Laying her baby's hand down on the letter,around it she traced a rude line;"If you would kiss the baby," she wrote, "youmust kiss this outline of mine."
There was the shape of the hand on the page,with the small, chubby fingers outspread."Marthy Virginia's hand, for her pa,"—so thewords on the little palm said.Never a wink slept the colonel that night, forthe vengeance so blindly fulfilled;Never again woke the old battle-glow when thebullets their death-note shrilled.Long ago ended the struggle, in union ofbrotherhood happily stilled;Yet from that field of Antietam, in warning andtoken of love's command,See! there is lifted the hand of a baby—MarthyVirginia's hand!
Victors, living, with laureled brow,And you that sleep beneath the sward!Your song was poured from cannon throats:It rang in deep-tongued bugle-notes:Your triumph came; you won your crown,The grandeur of a world's renown.But, in our later lays,Full freighted with your praise,Fair memory harbors those whose lives, laid downIn gallant faith and generous heat,Gained only sharp defeat.All are at peace, who once so fiercely warred:Brother and brother, now, we chant a common chord.
For, if we say God wills,Shall we then idly deny HimCare of each host in the fight?His thunder was here in the hillsWhen the guns were loud in July;And the flash of the musketry's lightWas sped by a ray from God's eye.In its good and its evil the schemeWas framed with omnipotent hand,Though the battle of men was a dreamThat they could but half understand.Can the purpose of God pass by him?Nay; it was sure, and was wroughtUnder inscrutable powers:Bravely the two armies foughtAnd left the land, that was greater than they, still theirs and ours!
Lucid, pure, and calm and blamelessDawned on Gettysburg the dayThat should make the spot, once fameless,Known to nations far away.Birds were caroling, and farmersGladdened o'er their garnered hay,When the clank of gathering armorsBroke the morning's peaceful sway;And the living lines of foemenDrawn o'er pasture, brook, and hill,Formed in figures weird of omenThat should work with mystic willMeasures of a direful magic—Shattering, maiming—and should fillGlades and gorges with a tragicMadness of desire to kill.Skirmishers flung lightly forwardMoved like scythemen skilled to sweepWestward o'er the field and nor'ward,Death's first harvest there to reap.You would say the soft, white smoke-puffsWere but languid clouds asleep,Here on meadows, there on oak-bluffs,Fallen foam of Heaven's blue deep.Yet that blossom-white outbreakingSmoke wove soon a martyr's shroud.Reynolds fell, with soul unquaking,Ardent-eyed and open-browed:Noble men in humbler raimentFell where shot their graves had plowed,Dying not for paltry payment:Proud of home, of honor proud.
Mute Seminary there,Filled once with resonant hymn and prayer,How your meek walls and windows shuddered then!Though Doubleday stemmed the flood,McPherson's Wood and Willoughby's RunSaw ere the set of sunThe light of the gospel of blood.And, on the morrow again,Loud the unholy psalm of battleBurst from the tortured Devil's Den,In cries of men and musketry rattleMixed with the helpless bellow of cattleTorn by artillery, down in the glen;While, hurtling through the branchesOf the orchard by the road,Where Sickles and Birney were walled with steel,Shot fiery avalanchesThat shivered hope and made the sturdiest reel.Yet peach-bloom bright as April sawBlushed there anew, in blood that flowedO'er faces white with death-dealt awe;And ruddy flowers of warfare grew,Though withering winds as of the desert blew,Far at the right while Ewell and Early,Plunging at Slocum and Wadsworth and Greene,Thundered in onslaught consummate and surly;Till trembling nightfall crept betweenAnd whispered of rest from the heat of the whelming strife.But unto those forsaken of lifeWhat has the night to say?Silent beneath the moony sky,Crushed in a costly dew they lie:Deaf to plaint or paean, they:—Freed from Earth's dull tyranny.
Wordless the night-wind, funereal plumes of the tree-tops swaying—Writhing and nodding anon at the beck of the unseen breeze!Yet its voice ever a murmur resumes, as of multitudes praying:Liturgies lost in a moan like the mourning of far-away seas.May then those spirits, set free, a celestial council obeying,Move in this rustling whisper here thro' the dark, shaken trees?—Souls that are voices alone to us, now, yet linger, returningThrilled with a sweet reconcilement and fervid with speechless desire?Sundered in warfare, immortal they meet now with wonder and yearning,Dwelling together united, a rapt, invisible choir:Hearken! They wail for the living, whose passion of battle, yet burning,Sears and enfolds them in coils, and consumes, like a serpent of fire!
Men of New Hampshire, Pennsylvanians,Maine men, firm as the rock's rough ledge!Swift Mississippians, lithe CaroliniansBursting over the battle's edge!Bold Indiana men; gallant Virginians;Jersey and Georgia legions clashing;—Pick of Connecticut; quick Vermonters;Louisianians, madly dashing;—And, swooping still to fresh encounters,New-York myriads, whirlwind-led!—All your furious forces, meeting,Torn, entangled, and shifting place,Blend like wings of eagles beatingAiry abysses, in angry embrace.Here in the midmost struggle combining—Flags immingled and weapons crossed—Still in union your States troop shining:Never a star from the lustre is lost!
Once more the sun deploys his rays:Third in the trilogy of battle-daysThe awful Friday comes:A day of dread,That should have moved with slow, averted headAnd muffled feet,Knowing what streams of pure blood shed,What broken hearts and wounded lives must meetIts pitiless tread.At dawn, like monster mastiffs baying,Federal cannon, with a din affraying,Roused the old Stonewall brigade,That, eagerly and undismayed,Charged amain, to be repelledAfter four hours' bitter fighting,Forth and back, with bayonets biting;Where in after years, the wood—Flayed and bullet-riddled—stoodA presence ghostly, grim and stark,With trees all withered, wasted, gray,The place of combat night and dayLike marshaled skeletons to mark.Anon, a lull: the troops are spelled.No sound of guns or drumsDisturbs the air.Only the insect-chorus faintly hums,Chirping around the patient, sleepless deadScattered, or fallen in heaps all wildly spread;Forgotten fragments left in hurried flight;Forms that, a few hours since, were human creatures,Now blasted of their features,Or stamped with blank despair;Or with dumb faces smiling as for gladness,Though stricken by utter blightOf motionless, inert, and hopeless sadness.Fear you the naked horrors of a war?Then cherish peace, and take up arms no more.For, if you fight, you mustBehold your brothers' dustUnpityingly ground downAnd mixed with blood and powder,To write the annals of renownThat make a nation prouder!
All is quiet till one o'clock;Then the hundred and fifty guns,Metal loaded with metal in tons,Massed by Lee, send out their shock.And, with a movement magnificent,Pickett, the golden-haired leader,Thousands and thousands flings onward, as if he sentMerely a meek interceder.Steadily sure his division advances,Gay as the light on its weapons that dances.Agonized screams of the shellThe doom that it carries foretell:Rifle-balls whistle, like sea-birds singing;Limbs are severed, and souls set winging;Yet Pickett's warriors never waver.Show me in all the world anything braverThan the bold sweep of his fearless battalions,Three half-miles over ground unshelteredUp to the cannon, where regiments welteredProne in the batteries' blast that rakedSwaths of men and, flame-tongued, drankTheir blood with eager thirst unslaked.Armistead, Kemper, and PettigrewRush on the Union men, rank against rank,Planting their battle-flags high on the crest.Pause not the soldiers, nor dream they of rest,Till they fall with their enemy's guns at the breastAnd the shriek in their ears of the wounded artillery stallions.So Pickett charged, a man induedWith knightly power to lead a multitudeAnd bring to fame the scarred surviving few.
In vain the mighty endeavor;In vain the immortal valor;In vain the insurgent life outpoured!Faltered the column, spent with shot and sword;Its bright hope blanched with sudden pallor;While Hancock's trefoil bloomed in triple fame.He chose the field; he saved the second day;And, honoring here his glorious name,Again his phalanx held victorious sway.Meade's line stood firm, and volley on volley roaredTriumphant Union, soon to be restored,Strong to defy all foes and fears forever.The Ridge was wreathed with angry fireAs flames rise round a martyr's stake;For many a hero on that pyreWas offered for our dear land's sake,What time in heaven the gray clouds flewTo mingle with the deathless blue;While here, below, the blue and grayMelted minglingly away,Mirroring heaven, to make another day.And we, who are Americans, we prayThe splendor of strength that Gettysburg knewMay light the long generations with glorious ray,And keep us undyingly true!
Dear are the dead we weep for;Dear are the strong hearts broken!Proudly their memory we keep forOur help and hope; a tokenOf sacred thought too deep forWords that leave it unspoken.All that we know of fairest,All that we have of meetest,Here we lay down for the rarestDoers whose souls rose fleetestAnd in their homes of air rest,Ranked with the truest and sweetest.Days, with fiery-hearted, bold advances;Nights in dim and shadowy, swift retreat;Rains that rush with bright, embattled lances;Thunder, booming round your stirless feet;—Winds that set the orchard with sweet fanciesAll abloom, or ripple the ripening wheat;Moonlight, starlight, on your mute graves falling;Dew, distilled as tears unbidden flow;—Dust of drought in drifts and layers crawling;Lulling dreams of softly whispering snow;Happy birds, from leafy coverts calling;—These go on, yet none of these you know:Hearing not our human voicesSpeaking to you all in vain,Nor the psalm of a land that rejoices,Ringing from churches and cities and foundries a mighty refrain!But we, and the sun and the birds, and the breezes that blowWhen tempests are striving and lightnings of heaven are spent,With one consentMake unto themWho died for us eternal requiem.
Lovely to look on, O South,No longer stately-scornfulBut beautiful still in pride,Our hearts go out to you as toward a bride!Garmented soft in white,Haughty, and yet how love-imbuing and tender!You stand before us with your gently mournfulMemory-haunted eyes and flower-like mouth,Where clinging thoughts—as bees a-clusterMurmur through the leafy gloom,Musical in monotone—Whisper sadly. Yet a lustreAs of glowing gold-gray lightShines upon the orient bloom,Sweet with orange-blossoms, thrownRound the jasmine-starred, deep nightCrowning with dark hair your brow.Ruthless, once, we came to slay,And you met us then with hate.Rough was the wooing of war: we won you,Won you at last, though late!Dear South, to-day,As our country's altar made usOne forever, so we vowUnto yours our love to render:Strength with strength we here endow,And we make your honor ours.Happiness and hope shall sun you:All the wiles that half betrayed usVanish from us like spent showers.
Two hostile bullets in mid-airTogether shocked,And swift were lockedForever in a firm embrace.Then let us men have so much graceTo take the bullets' place,And learn that we are heldBy laws that weldOur hearts together!As once we battled hand to hand,So hand in hand to-day we stand,Sworn to each other,Brother and brother,In storm and mist, or calm, translucent weather:And Gettysburg's guns, with their death-giving roar,Echoed from ocean to ocean, shall pourQuickening life to the nation's core;Filling our minds againWith the spirit of those who wrought in theField of the Flower of Men!