4.Ah, tender heart of woman leal,Supple as wax and strong as steel!Thousands as faithful and as lone,Following each some dearest one,Found in those early months a homeUnder the brightness of that domeWhose argent arches for aye enfoldThe hopes of a people in their hold,—Irradiate, in the sight of allWho guard the Capital’s outer wall.Lastly came one, amid the rest,Whose form a sunburnt soldier prest,As lovers embrace in respite lentFrom unfulfilled imprisonment.And Alice found a new content:Dearer for perils that had beenWere short-lived meetings, far between;Better, for dangers yet to be,The moments she still his face could see.These, for the pure and loving wife,Were the silver bars that marked her life,That numbered the days melodiously;While, through all noble daring, HughFrom a Captain to a Colonel grew,And his praises sweetened every tongueThat reached her ear,—for old and youngGave him the gallant leader’s due.X.1.Flight of a meteor through the sky,Scattering firebrands, arrows, and death,—A baleful year, that hurtled byWhile ancient kingdoms held their breath.2.The Capital grew aghast with sightsFlashed from the lurid river-heights,Full of the fearful things sent down,By demons haunting the middle air,Into the hot, beleaguered town,—All woful sights and sounds, which seemThe fantasy of a sickly dream:Crowded wickedness everywhere;Everywhere a stifled senseOf the noonday-striding pestilence;Every church, from wall to wall,A closely-mattressed hospital;And ah! our bleeding heroes, broughtFrom smouldering fields so vainly fought,Filling each place where a man could lieTo gasp a dying wish—and die;While the sombre sky, relentlessly,Covered the town with a funeral-pall,A death-damp, trickling funeral-pall.3.Always the dust and mire; the soundOf the rumbling wagon’s ceaseless round,The cannon jarring the trampled ground.The sad, unvarying picture wroughtUpon the pitying woman’s heartOf Alice, the Colonel’s wife, and taughtHer spirit to choose the better part,—The labor of loving angels, sentTo men in their sore encompassment.Daily her gentle steps were bentThrough the thin pathways which divideThe patient sufferers, side from side,In dolorous wards, where Death and LifeWage their silent, endless strife;And she gave to all her soothing words,Sweet as the songs of homestead birds.Sometimes that utterance musicalOn the soldier’s failing sense would fallSeeming, almost, a prelude givenOf whispers that calm the air of Heaven;While her white hand, moistening his poor lipsWith the draught which slakeless fever sips,Pointed him to that fount above,—River of water of life and love,—Stream without price, of whose purityWhoever thirsteth may freely buy.4.How many—whom in their mortal painShe tended—’twas given her to gain,Through Him who died upon the rood,For that divine beatitude,Who of us all can ever knowTill the golden books their records show?But she saw their dying faces light,And felt a rapture in the sight.And many a sufferer’s earthly lifeThanked for new strength the Colonel’s wife;Many a soldier turned his head,Watching her pass his narrow bed,Or, haply, his feeble frame would raise,As the dim lamp her form revealed;And, like the children in the field,(For soldiers like little ones become,—As simple in heart, as frolicsome,)One and another breathed her name,Blessing her as she went and came.5.So, through all actions pure and good,Unknowing evil, shame, or fear,She grew to perfect ladyhood,—Unwittingly the mate and peerOf the proudest of her husband’s blood.XI.1.Like an affluent, royal town, the summer campsOf a hundred thousand men are stretched away.At night, like multitudinous city lamps,Their numberless watch-fires beacon, clear and still,And a glory beams from the zenith litWith lurid vapors that over its star-lights flit;But wreaths of opaline cloud o’erhang, by day,The crystal-pointed tents, from hill to hill,From vale to vale—untilThe heavens on endless peaks their curtain lay.A magical city! spread to-nightOn hills which slope within our sight:To-morrow, as at the waving of a wand,Tents, guidons, bannerols are moved afar,—Rising elsewhere, as rises a morning-star,Or the dream of Aladdin’s palace in fairy-land.2.Camp after camp, like marble square on square;Street following street, with many a park between;Bright bayonet-sparkles in the tremulous air;Far-fading, purple smoke above their sheen;Green central fields with flags like flowers abloom;And, all about, close-ordered, populous life:But here no festering trade, no civic strife,Only the blue-clad soldiers everywhere,Waiting to-morrow’s victory or doom,—Men of the hour, to whom these pictures seem,Like school-boy thoughts, half real, half a dream.3.Camps of the cavalry, apart,Are pitched with nicest artOn hilly suburbs where old forests grow.Here, by itself, one glimmers through the pines,—One whose high-hearted chief we know:A thousand men leap when his bugles blow;A thousand horses curvet at his lines,Pawing the turf; among them come and goThe jacketed troopers, changed by wind and rain,Storm, raid, and skirmish, sunshine, midnight dew,To bronzéd men who never ride in vain.4.In the great wall-tent at the head of the square,The Colonel hangs his sword, and thereHuge logs burn high in front at the close of the day;And the captains gather ere the long tattoo,While the banded buglers play;Then come the tales of home and the troopers’ song.Clear over the distant outposts float the notes,And the lone vidette to catch them listens long;And the officer of the guard, upon his round,Pauses, to hear the soundOf the chiming chorus poured from a score of throats:5.CAVALRY SONG.Our good steeds snuff the evening air,Our pulses with their purpose tingle;The foeman’s fires are twinkling there;He leaps to hear our sabres jingle!Halt!Each carbine send its whizzing ball:Now, cling! clang! forward all,Into the fight!Dash on beneath the smoking dome,Through level lightnings gallop nearer!One look to Heaven! No thoughts of home:The guidons that we bear are dearer.Charge!Cling! clang! forward all!Heaven help those whose horses fall!Cut left and right!They flee before our fierce attack!They fall, they spread in broken surges!Now, comrades, bear our wounded back,And leave the foeman to his dirges.Wheel!The bugles sound the swift recall:Cling! clang! backward all!Home, and good night!XII.1.When April rains and the great spring-tideCover the lowlands far and wide,And eastern winds blow somewhat harshOver the salt and mildewed marsh,Then the grasses take deeper root,Sucking, athirst and resolute;And when the waters eddy away,Flowing in trenches to Newark Bay,The fibrous blades grow rank and tall,And from their tops the reed-birds call.Five miles in width the moor is spread;Two broad rivers its borders thread;The schooners which up their channels passSeem to be sailing in the grass,Save as they rise with the moon-drawn sea,Twice in the day, continuously.2.Gray with an inward struggle grown,The brooding lawyer, Hermann Van Ghelt,Lived at the mansion-house, alone;But a chilling cloud at his bosom felt,Like the fog which crept, at morn and night,Across the rivers in his sight,And rising, left the moorland plainBare and spectral and cold again.He saw the one tall hill, which stoodHuge with its quarry and gloaming wood,And the creeping engines, as they histThrough the dim reaches of the mist,—Serpents, with ominous eyes aglow,Thridding the grasses to and fro;And he thought how each dark, receding trainCarried its freight of joy and pain,On toil’s adventure and fortune’s quest,To the troubled city of unrest;And he knew that under the desolate pallOf the bleak horizon, skirting all,The burdened ocean heaved, and rolledIts moaning surges manifold.3.Often at evening, gazing throughThe eastward windows on such a view,Its sense enwrapt him as with a shroud;Often at noon, in the city’s crowd,He saw, as ’twere in a mystic glass,Unbidden faces before him pass:A soldier, with eyes unawed and mildAs the eyes of one who was his child;A woman’s visage, like that which blestA year of his better years the best;And the plea of a voice, remembered well,Deep in his secret hearing fell.And as week by week its records broughtOf heroes fallen as they fought,There little by little awakenédIn the lawyer’s heart a shapeless dread,A fear of the tidings which of allOn ear and spirit heaviest fall,—Changeless sentence of mortal fate,Freezing the marrow with—Too Late!XIII.1.Thus,—when ended the morning tramp,And the regiment came back to camp,And the Colonel, breathing hard with pain,Was carried within the lines again,—Thus a Color-Sergeant toldThe story of that skirmish bold:2.“’Twas an hour past midnight, twelve hours ago,—We were all asleep, you know,Save the officer on his rounds,And the guard-relief,—when soundsThe signal-gun! once—twice—Thrice! and then, in a trice,The long assembly-call rang sharp and clear,Till ‘Boots and Saddles’ made us scamper like mice.No time to wasteIn asking whether a fight was near;Over the horses went their traps in haste;Not ten minutes had pastEre we stood in marching gear,And the call of the roll was followed by orders fast:‘Prepare to mount!’‘Mount!’—and the company ranks were made;Then in each rank, by fours, we took the count,And the head of the column wheeled for the long parade.3.“There, on the beaten ground,The regiment formed from right to left;Our Colonel, straight in his saddle, looked around,Reining the stallion in, that felt the heftOf his rider, and stamped his foot, and wanted to dance.At last the order came:‘By twos: forward, march!’—and the sameFrom each officer in advance;And, as the rear-guard left the spot,We broke into the even trot.4.“‘Trot, march!’—two by two,In the dust and in the dew,Roads and open meadows through.Steadily we kept the tuneUnderneath the stars and moon.None, except the Colonel, knewWhat our orders were to do;Whether on a forage-raidWe were tramping, boot and blade,Or a close reconnoissanceEre the army should advance;One thing certain, we were boundStraight for Stuart’s camping-ground.Plunging into forest-shade,Well we knew each glen and glade!Sweet they smelled, the pine and oak,And of home my comrade spoke.Tramp, tramp, out again,Sheer across the ragged plain,Where the moonbeams glaze our steelAnd the fresher air we feel.Thus a triple league, and more,Till behind us spreads the gray,Pallid light of breaking day,And on cloudy hills, before,Rebel camp-fires smoke away.Hard by yonder clump of pinesWe should touch the rebel lines:‘Walk, march!’ and, softly now,Gain yon hillock’s westward brow.5.“‘Halt!’ and ‘Right into line!’—There on the ridgeIn battle-order we let the horses breathe;The Colonel raised his glass and scanned the bridge,The tents on the bank beyond, the stream beneath.Just then the sun first broke from the redder east,And their pickets saw five hundred of us, at least,Stretched like a dark stockade against the sky;We heard their long-roll clamor loud and nigh:In half a minute a rumbling battery whirledTo a mound in front, unlimbering with a will,And a twelve-pound solid shot came right along,Singing a devilish morning-song,And touched my comrade’s leg, and the poor boy curledAnd dropt to the turf, holding his bridle still.Well, we moved out of range,—were wheeling round,I think, for the Colonel had taken his look at their ground,(Thus he was ordered, it seems, and nothing more:Hardly worth coming at midnight for!)When, over the bridge, a troop of the enemy’s horseDashed out upon our course,Giving us hope of a tussle to warm our blood.Then we cheered, to a man, that our early callHadn’t been sounded for nothing, after all;And halting, to wait their movements, the column stood.6.“Then into squadrons we saw their ranks enlarge,And slow and steady they moved to the charge,Shaking the ground as they came in carbine-range.‘Front into line! March! Halt! Front!’Our Colonel cried; and in squadrons, to meet the brunt,We too from the walk to the trot our paces change:‘Gallop, march!’—and, hot for the fray,Pistols and sabres drawn, we canter away.7.“Twenty rods over the slippery cloverWe galloped as gayly as lady and lover;Held the reins lightly, our good weapons tightly,Five solid squadrons all shining and sightly;Not too fast, half the strength of our brave steeds to wasten,Not too slow, for the warmth of their fire made us hasten,As it came with a rattle and opened the battle,Tumbling from saddles ten fellows of mettle.So the distance grew shorter, their sabres shone broader;Then the bugle’s wild blare and the Colonel’s loud order,—“Charge!†and we sprang, while the far echo rang,And their bullets, like bees, in our ears fiercely sang.Forward we strode to pay what we owed,Right at the head of their column we rode;Together we dashed, and the air reeled and flashed;Stirrups, sabres, and scabbards all shattered and crashedAs we cut in and out, right and left, all about,Hand to hand, blow for blow, shot for shot, shout for shout,Till the earth seemed to boil with the heat of our toil.But in less than five minutes we felt them recoil,Heard their shrill rally sound, and, like hares from the hound,Each ran for himself: one and all fled the ground!Then we goaded them up to their guns, where they cowered,And the breeze cleared the field where the battle-cloud lowered.Threescore of them lay, to teach them the wayVan Ghelt and his rangers their compliments pay.But a plenty, I swear, of our saddles were bare;Friend and foe, horse and rider, lay sprawled everywhere:’Twas hard hitting, you see, Sir, that gained us the day!8.“Yes, they too had their say before they fled,And the loss of our Colonel is worse than all the rest.One of their captains aimed at him, as he ledThe foremost charge—I shot the rascal dead,But the Colonel fell, with a bullet through his breast.We lifted him from the mire, when the field was won,And their captured colors shaded him from the sunIn the farmer’s wagon we took for his homeward ride;But he never said a word, nor opened his eyes,Till we reached the camp. In yon hospital tent he lies,And his poor young wife will come to watch by his side.The surgeon hasn’t found the bullet, as yet,But he says it’s a mortal wound. Where will you getAnother such man to lead us, if he dies?â€XIV.1.Sprung was the bow at last;And the barbed and pointed dart,Keen with stings of the past,Barbed with a vain remorse,Clove for itself a courseStraight to the father’s heart;And a lonely wanderer stood,Mazed in a mist of thought,On the edge of a field of blood.—For a battle had been fought,And the cavalry skirmish was but a wild preludeTo the broader carnage that heaped a field in vain:A terrible battle had been fought,Till its changeful current broughtTumultuous, angry surges roaring backTo the lines where our army had lain.The lawyer, driven hard by an inward pain,Was crossing, in search of a dying son, the trackWhere the deluge rose and fell, and its stranded wrackHad sown the loathing earth with human slain.2.Friends and foes,—who could discover which,As they marked the zigzag, outer ditch,Or lay so cold and still in the bush,Fallen and trampled down in the last wild rush?Then the shattered forest-trees; the clearing thereWhere a battery stood; dead horses, pawing the airWith horrible upright hoofs; a mangled massOf wounded and stifled men in the low morass;And the long trench dug in haste for a burial-pit,Whose yawning length and breadth all comers fit.3.And over the dreadful precinct, like the lightsThat flit through graveyard walks in dismal nights,Men with lanterns were groping among the dead,Holding the flame to every hueless face,And bearing those whose life had not wholly fledOn stretchers, that looked like biers, from the ghastly place.4.The air above seemed heavy with errant souls,Dense with ghosts from those gory forms arisen,—Each rudely driven from its prison,’Mid the harsh jar of rattling musket-rolls,And quivering throes, and unexpected force;In helpless waves adrift confusedly,Freighting the sombre haze without resource.Through all there trickled, from the pitying sky,An infinite mist of tears upon the ground,Muffling the groans of anguish with its sound.5.On the borders of such a land, on the bounds of Death,The stranger, shuddering, moved as one who saith:“God! what a doleful clime, a drear domain!â€And onward, struggling with his pain,Traversed the endless camp-fires, spark by spark,Past sentinels that challenged from the dark,Guided through camp and camp to one long tentWhose ridge a flying bolt from the field had rent,Letting the midnight mist, the battle din,Fall on the hundred forms that writhed within.6.Beyond the gaunt Zouave at the nearest cot,And the bugler shot in the arm, who lay beside(Looking down at the wounded spotEven then, for all the pain, with boyish pride),And a score of men, with blankets opened wide,Showing the gory bandages which boundThe paths of many a deadly wound,—Over all these the stranger’s glances spedTo one low stretcher, at whose headA woman, bowed and brooding, sate,As sit the angels of our fate,Who, motionless, our births and deaths await.He whom she tended moaned and tost,Restless, as some laborious vessel, lostClose to the port for which we saw it sail,Groans in the long perpetual gale;But she, that watched the storm, forbore to weep.Sometimes the stranger saw her moveTo others, who also with their anguish strove;But ever again her constant footsteps turnedTo one who made sad mutterings in his sleep;Ever she listened to his breathings deep,Or trimmed the midnight lamp that feebly burned.XV.Leaning her face on her handShe sat by the side of Hugh,Silently watching him breathe,As a lily curves its graceOver the broken formOf the twin which stood by its side.A glory upon her headTrailed from the light above,Gilding her tranquil hair.There, as she sat in a trance,Her soul flowed through the past,As a river, day and night,Passes through changeful shores,—Sees, on the twofold bank,Meadow and mossy grange,Castles on hoary crags,Forests, and fortressed towns,And shrinks from the widening bay,And the darkness which overhangsThe unknown, limitless sea.Was it a troubled dream,All that the stream of her lifeHad mirrored along its course?All—from that summer mornWhen she seemed to meet in the fieldOne whom she vowed to love,And with whom she wandered thence,Leaving the home of her youth?Were they visions indeed,—The pillars of smoke and flame,The sound of a hundred fights,The grandeur, and ah! the gloom,The shadows which circled her now,And the wraith of the one she lovedGliding away from her grasp,Vanishing swiftly and sure?Yes, it was all a dream;And the strange, sad man, who movedTo the other side of the couch,Bending over it long,Pressing his hand on his heart,And gazing, anon, in her eyes,—He, with his scanty hair,And pallid, repentant face,He, too, was a voiceless dream,A vision like all the rest;He with the rest would fadeWhen the day should dawn again,When the spectral mist of night,Fused with the golden morn,Should melt in the eastern sky.XVI.1.“Steady! forward the squadron!†criesThe dying soldier, and strives amainTo rise from the pillow and his pain.Wild and wandering are his eyes,Painting once more, on the empty air,The wrathful battle’s wavering glare.“Hugh!†said Alice, and checked her fear“Speak to me, Hugh; your father is here.â€â€œFather! what of my father? heIs anything but a father to me;What need I of a father, whenI have the hearts of a thousand men?â€â€œâ€”Alas, Sir, he knows not me nor you!â€And with caressing words, the twain—The man with all remorsefulness,The woman with loving tenderness—Soothed the soldier to rest anew,And, as the madness left his brain,Silently watched his sleep again.2.And again the father and the wife,Counting the precious sands of life,Looked each askance, with those subtle eyes,That probe through human mysteriesAnd hidden motives fathom well;But the mild regard of Alice fell,Meeting the other’s contrite glance,On his meek and furrowed countenance,Scathed, as it seemed, with troubled thought:“Surely, good angels have with him wrought,â€She murmured, and halted, even acrossThe sorrowful threshold of her loss,To pity his thin and changing hair,And her heart forgave him, unaware.3.And he,—who saw how she still represtA drear foreboding within her breast,And, by her wifehood’s nearest right,Ever more closely through the nightClave unto him whose quickened breathCame like a waft from the realm of Death,—He felt what a secret, powerful tieBound them in one, mysteriously.He studied her features, as she stoodLighting the shades of that woful placeWith the presence of her womanhood,And thought—as the dying son had thoughtWhen her beauty first his vision caught—“I never saw a fairer face;I never heard a sweeter voice!â€And a sad remembrance travelled fastThrough all the labyrinth of the past,Till he said, as the scales fell off at last,“How could I blame him for his choice?â€Then he looked upon the sword, which layAt the headboard, under the night-lamp’s ray;He saw the coat, the stains, the dust,The gilded eagles worn with rust,The swarthy forehead and matted hairOf the strong, brave hero lying there;And he felt how gently Hugh held command,—The life how gallant, the death how grand;And with trembling lips, and the words that choke,And the tears which burn the cheek, he spoke:“Where is the father who would not joyIn the manhood of such a noble boy?This life, which had being through my own,Was a better life than I have known;O that its fairness should be earth,Ere I could prize it at its worth!â€â€œToo late! too late!â€â€”he made his moan—“I find a daughter, and her alone.He deemed you worthy to bear his name,His spotless honor, his lasting fame:I, who have wronged you, bid you liveTo comfort the lonely—and forgive.â€4.Dim and silvery from the eastThe infant light of another mornOver the stirring camps was borne;But the soldier’s pulse had almost ceased,And there crept upon his brow the change—Ah, how sudden! alas, how strange!Yet again his eyelids opened wide,And his glances moved to either side,This time with a clear intelligenceWhich took all objects in its sense,A power to comprehend the wholeOf the scene that girded his passing soul.The father, who saw it, slowly drewNearer to her that wept anew,And gathered her tenderly in his hold,—As mortals their precious things enfold,Grasping them late and sure; and HughGazed on the two a space, and smiledWith the look he wore when a little child,—A smile of pride and peace, that meantA free forgiveness, a full content;Then his clouding sight an instant clungTo the flag whose stars above him hung,And his blunted senses seemed to hearThe long reveillée sounding near;But the ringing clarion could not vieWith the richer notes which filled his ear,Nor the breaking morn with that brighter sky.
4.Ah, tender heart of woman leal,Supple as wax and strong as steel!Thousands as faithful and as lone,Following each some dearest one,Found in those early months a homeUnder the brightness of that domeWhose argent arches for aye enfoldThe hopes of a people in their hold,—Irradiate, in the sight of allWho guard the Capital’s outer wall.Lastly came one, amid the rest,Whose form a sunburnt soldier prest,As lovers embrace in respite lentFrom unfulfilled imprisonment.And Alice found a new content:Dearer for perils that had beenWere short-lived meetings, far between;Better, for dangers yet to be,The moments she still his face could see.These, for the pure and loving wife,Were the silver bars that marked her life,That numbered the days melodiously;While, through all noble daring, HughFrom a Captain to a Colonel grew,And his praises sweetened every tongueThat reached her ear,—for old and youngGave him the gallant leader’s due.X.1.Flight of a meteor through the sky,Scattering firebrands, arrows, and death,—A baleful year, that hurtled byWhile ancient kingdoms held their breath.2.The Capital grew aghast with sightsFlashed from the lurid river-heights,Full of the fearful things sent down,By demons haunting the middle air,Into the hot, beleaguered town,—All woful sights and sounds, which seemThe fantasy of a sickly dream:Crowded wickedness everywhere;Everywhere a stifled senseOf the noonday-striding pestilence;Every church, from wall to wall,A closely-mattressed hospital;And ah! our bleeding heroes, broughtFrom smouldering fields so vainly fought,Filling each place where a man could lieTo gasp a dying wish—and die;While the sombre sky, relentlessly,Covered the town with a funeral-pall,A death-damp, trickling funeral-pall.3.Always the dust and mire; the soundOf the rumbling wagon’s ceaseless round,The cannon jarring the trampled ground.The sad, unvarying picture wroughtUpon the pitying woman’s heartOf Alice, the Colonel’s wife, and taughtHer spirit to choose the better part,—The labor of loving angels, sentTo men in their sore encompassment.Daily her gentle steps were bentThrough the thin pathways which divideThe patient sufferers, side from side,In dolorous wards, where Death and LifeWage their silent, endless strife;And she gave to all her soothing words,Sweet as the songs of homestead birds.Sometimes that utterance musicalOn the soldier’s failing sense would fallSeeming, almost, a prelude givenOf whispers that calm the air of Heaven;While her white hand, moistening his poor lipsWith the draught which slakeless fever sips,Pointed him to that fount above,—River of water of life and love,—Stream without price, of whose purityWhoever thirsteth may freely buy.4.How many—whom in their mortal painShe tended—’twas given her to gain,Through Him who died upon the rood,For that divine beatitude,Who of us all can ever knowTill the golden books their records show?But she saw their dying faces light,And felt a rapture in the sight.And many a sufferer’s earthly lifeThanked for new strength the Colonel’s wife;Many a soldier turned his head,Watching her pass his narrow bed,Or, haply, his feeble frame would raise,As the dim lamp her form revealed;And, like the children in the field,(For soldiers like little ones become,—As simple in heart, as frolicsome,)One and another breathed her name,Blessing her as she went and came.5.So, through all actions pure and good,Unknowing evil, shame, or fear,She grew to perfect ladyhood,—Unwittingly the mate and peerOf the proudest of her husband’s blood.XI.1.Like an affluent, royal town, the summer campsOf a hundred thousand men are stretched away.At night, like multitudinous city lamps,Their numberless watch-fires beacon, clear and still,And a glory beams from the zenith litWith lurid vapors that over its star-lights flit;But wreaths of opaline cloud o’erhang, by day,The crystal-pointed tents, from hill to hill,From vale to vale—untilThe heavens on endless peaks their curtain lay.A magical city! spread to-nightOn hills which slope within our sight:To-morrow, as at the waving of a wand,Tents, guidons, bannerols are moved afar,—Rising elsewhere, as rises a morning-star,Or the dream of Aladdin’s palace in fairy-land.2.Camp after camp, like marble square on square;Street following street, with many a park between;Bright bayonet-sparkles in the tremulous air;Far-fading, purple smoke above their sheen;Green central fields with flags like flowers abloom;And, all about, close-ordered, populous life:But here no festering trade, no civic strife,Only the blue-clad soldiers everywhere,Waiting to-morrow’s victory or doom,—Men of the hour, to whom these pictures seem,Like school-boy thoughts, half real, half a dream.3.Camps of the cavalry, apart,Are pitched with nicest artOn hilly suburbs where old forests grow.Here, by itself, one glimmers through the pines,—One whose high-hearted chief we know:A thousand men leap when his bugles blow;A thousand horses curvet at his lines,Pawing the turf; among them come and goThe jacketed troopers, changed by wind and rain,Storm, raid, and skirmish, sunshine, midnight dew,To bronzéd men who never ride in vain.4.In the great wall-tent at the head of the square,The Colonel hangs his sword, and thereHuge logs burn high in front at the close of the day;And the captains gather ere the long tattoo,While the banded buglers play;Then come the tales of home and the troopers’ song.Clear over the distant outposts float the notes,And the lone vidette to catch them listens long;And the officer of the guard, upon his round,Pauses, to hear the soundOf the chiming chorus poured from a score of throats:5.CAVALRY SONG.Our good steeds snuff the evening air,Our pulses with their purpose tingle;The foeman’s fires are twinkling there;He leaps to hear our sabres jingle!Halt!Each carbine send its whizzing ball:Now, cling! clang! forward all,Into the fight!Dash on beneath the smoking dome,Through level lightnings gallop nearer!One look to Heaven! No thoughts of home:The guidons that we bear are dearer.Charge!Cling! clang! forward all!Heaven help those whose horses fall!Cut left and right!They flee before our fierce attack!They fall, they spread in broken surges!Now, comrades, bear our wounded back,And leave the foeman to his dirges.Wheel!The bugles sound the swift recall:Cling! clang! backward all!Home, and good night!XII.1.When April rains and the great spring-tideCover the lowlands far and wide,And eastern winds blow somewhat harshOver the salt and mildewed marsh,Then the grasses take deeper root,Sucking, athirst and resolute;And when the waters eddy away,Flowing in trenches to Newark Bay,The fibrous blades grow rank and tall,And from their tops the reed-birds call.Five miles in width the moor is spread;Two broad rivers its borders thread;The schooners which up their channels passSeem to be sailing in the grass,Save as they rise with the moon-drawn sea,Twice in the day, continuously.2.Gray with an inward struggle grown,The brooding lawyer, Hermann Van Ghelt,Lived at the mansion-house, alone;But a chilling cloud at his bosom felt,Like the fog which crept, at morn and night,Across the rivers in his sight,And rising, left the moorland plainBare and spectral and cold again.He saw the one tall hill, which stoodHuge with its quarry and gloaming wood,And the creeping engines, as they histThrough the dim reaches of the mist,—Serpents, with ominous eyes aglow,Thridding the grasses to and fro;And he thought how each dark, receding trainCarried its freight of joy and pain,On toil’s adventure and fortune’s quest,To the troubled city of unrest;And he knew that under the desolate pallOf the bleak horizon, skirting all,The burdened ocean heaved, and rolledIts moaning surges manifold.3.Often at evening, gazing throughThe eastward windows on such a view,Its sense enwrapt him as with a shroud;Often at noon, in the city’s crowd,He saw, as ’twere in a mystic glass,Unbidden faces before him pass:A soldier, with eyes unawed and mildAs the eyes of one who was his child;A woman’s visage, like that which blestA year of his better years the best;And the plea of a voice, remembered well,Deep in his secret hearing fell.And as week by week its records broughtOf heroes fallen as they fought,There little by little awakenédIn the lawyer’s heart a shapeless dread,A fear of the tidings which of allOn ear and spirit heaviest fall,—Changeless sentence of mortal fate,Freezing the marrow with—Too Late!XIII.1.Thus,—when ended the morning tramp,And the regiment came back to camp,And the Colonel, breathing hard with pain,Was carried within the lines again,—Thus a Color-Sergeant toldThe story of that skirmish bold:2.“’Twas an hour past midnight, twelve hours ago,—We were all asleep, you know,Save the officer on his rounds,And the guard-relief,—when soundsThe signal-gun! once—twice—Thrice! and then, in a trice,The long assembly-call rang sharp and clear,Till ‘Boots and Saddles’ made us scamper like mice.No time to wasteIn asking whether a fight was near;Over the horses went their traps in haste;Not ten minutes had pastEre we stood in marching gear,And the call of the roll was followed by orders fast:‘Prepare to mount!’‘Mount!’—and the company ranks were made;Then in each rank, by fours, we took the count,And the head of the column wheeled for the long parade.3.“There, on the beaten ground,The regiment formed from right to left;Our Colonel, straight in his saddle, looked around,Reining the stallion in, that felt the heftOf his rider, and stamped his foot, and wanted to dance.At last the order came:‘By twos: forward, march!’—and the sameFrom each officer in advance;And, as the rear-guard left the spot,We broke into the even trot.4.“‘Trot, march!’—two by two,In the dust and in the dew,Roads and open meadows through.Steadily we kept the tuneUnderneath the stars and moon.None, except the Colonel, knewWhat our orders were to do;Whether on a forage-raidWe were tramping, boot and blade,Or a close reconnoissanceEre the army should advance;One thing certain, we were boundStraight for Stuart’s camping-ground.Plunging into forest-shade,Well we knew each glen and glade!Sweet they smelled, the pine and oak,And of home my comrade spoke.Tramp, tramp, out again,Sheer across the ragged plain,Where the moonbeams glaze our steelAnd the fresher air we feel.Thus a triple league, and more,Till behind us spreads the gray,Pallid light of breaking day,And on cloudy hills, before,Rebel camp-fires smoke away.Hard by yonder clump of pinesWe should touch the rebel lines:‘Walk, march!’ and, softly now,Gain yon hillock’s westward brow.5.“‘Halt!’ and ‘Right into line!’—There on the ridgeIn battle-order we let the horses breathe;The Colonel raised his glass and scanned the bridge,The tents on the bank beyond, the stream beneath.Just then the sun first broke from the redder east,And their pickets saw five hundred of us, at least,Stretched like a dark stockade against the sky;We heard their long-roll clamor loud and nigh:In half a minute a rumbling battery whirledTo a mound in front, unlimbering with a will,And a twelve-pound solid shot came right along,Singing a devilish morning-song,And touched my comrade’s leg, and the poor boy curledAnd dropt to the turf, holding his bridle still.Well, we moved out of range,—were wheeling round,I think, for the Colonel had taken his look at their ground,(Thus he was ordered, it seems, and nothing more:Hardly worth coming at midnight for!)When, over the bridge, a troop of the enemy’s horseDashed out upon our course,Giving us hope of a tussle to warm our blood.Then we cheered, to a man, that our early callHadn’t been sounded for nothing, after all;And halting, to wait their movements, the column stood.6.“Then into squadrons we saw their ranks enlarge,And slow and steady they moved to the charge,Shaking the ground as they came in carbine-range.‘Front into line! March! Halt! Front!’Our Colonel cried; and in squadrons, to meet the brunt,We too from the walk to the trot our paces change:‘Gallop, march!’—and, hot for the fray,Pistols and sabres drawn, we canter away.7.“Twenty rods over the slippery cloverWe galloped as gayly as lady and lover;Held the reins lightly, our good weapons tightly,Five solid squadrons all shining and sightly;Not too fast, half the strength of our brave steeds to wasten,Not too slow, for the warmth of their fire made us hasten,As it came with a rattle and opened the battle,Tumbling from saddles ten fellows of mettle.So the distance grew shorter, their sabres shone broader;Then the bugle’s wild blare and the Colonel’s loud order,—“Charge!†and we sprang, while the far echo rang,And their bullets, like bees, in our ears fiercely sang.Forward we strode to pay what we owed,Right at the head of their column we rode;Together we dashed, and the air reeled and flashed;Stirrups, sabres, and scabbards all shattered and crashedAs we cut in and out, right and left, all about,Hand to hand, blow for blow, shot for shot, shout for shout,Till the earth seemed to boil with the heat of our toil.But in less than five minutes we felt them recoil,Heard their shrill rally sound, and, like hares from the hound,Each ran for himself: one and all fled the ground!Then we goaded them up to their guns, where they cowered,And the breeze cleared the field where the battle-cloud lowered.Threescore of them lay, to teach them the wayVan Ghelt and his rangers their compliments pay.But a plenty, I swear, of our saddles were bare;Friend and foe, horse and rider, lay sprawled everywhere:’Twas hard hitting, you see, Sir, that gained us the day!8.“Yes, they too had their say before they fled,And the loss of our Colonel is worse than all the rest.One of their captains aimed at him, as he ledThe foremost charge—I shot the rascal dead,But the Colonel fell, with a bullet through his breast.We lifted him from the mire, when the field was won,And their captured colors shaded him from the sunIn the farmer’s wagon we took for his homeward ride;But he never said a word, nor opened his eyes,Till we reached the camp. In yon hospital tent he lies,And his poor young wife will come to watch by his side.The surgeon hasn’t found the bullet, as yet,But he says it’s a mortal wound. Where will you getAnother such man to lead us, if he dies?â€XIV.1.Sprung was the bow at last;And the barbed and pointed dart,Keen with stings of the past,Barbed with a vain remorse,Clove for itself a courseStraight to the father’s heart;And a lonely wanderer stood,Mazed in a mist of thought,On the edge of a field of blood.—For a battle had been fought,And the cavalry skirmish was but a wild preludeTo the broader carnage that heaped a field in vain:A terrible battle had been fought,Till its changeful current broughtTumultuous, angry surges roaring backTo the lines where our army had lain.The lawyer, driven hard by an inward pain,Was crossing, in search of a dying son, the trackWhere the deluge rose and fell, and its stranded wrackHad sown the loathing earth with human slain.2.Friends and foes,—who could discover which,As they marked the zigzag, outer ditch,Or lay so cold and still in the bush,Fallen and trampled down in the last wild rush?Then the shattered forest-trees; the clearing thereWhere a battery stood; dead horses, pawing the airWith horrible upright hoofs; a mangled massOf wounded and stifled men in the low morass;And the long trench dug in haste for a burial-pit,Whose yawning length and breadth all comers fit.3.And over the dreadful precinct, like the lightsThat flit through graveyard walks in dismal nights,Men with lanterns were groping among the dead,Holding the flame to every hueless face,And bearing those whose life had not wholly fledOn stretchers, that looked like biers, from the ghastly place.4.The air above seemed heavy with errant souls,Dense with ghosts from those gory forms arisen,—Each rudely driven from its prison,’Mid the harsh jar of rattling musket-rolls,And quivering throes, and unexpected force;In helpless waves adrift confusedly,Freighting the sombre haze without resource.Through all there trickled, from the pitying sky,An infinite mist of tears upon the ground,Muffling the groans of anguish with its sound.5.On the borders of such a land, on the bounds of Death,The stranger, shuddering, moved as one who saith:“God! what a doleful clime, a drear domain!â€And onward, struggling with his pain,Traversed the endless camp-fires, spark by spark,Past sentinels that challenged from the dark,Guided through camp and camp to one long tentWhose ridge a flying bolt from the field had rent,Letting the midnight mist, the battle din,Fall on the hundred forms that writhed within.6.Beyond the gaunt Zouave at the nearest cot,And the bugler shot in the arm, who lay beside(Looking down at the wounded spotEven then, for all the pain, with boyish pride),And a score of men, with blankets opened wide,Showing the gory bandages which boundThe paths of many a deadly wound,—Over all these the stranger’s glances spedTo one low stretcher, at whose headA woman, bowed and brooding, sate,As sit the angels of our fate,Who, motionless, our births and deaths await.He whom she tended moaned and tost,Restless, as some laborious vessel, lostClose to the port for which we saw it sail,Groans in the long perpetual gale;But she, that watched the storm, forbore to weep.Sometimes the stranger saw her moveTo others, who also with their anguish strove;But ever again her constant footsteps turnedTo one who made sad mutterings in his sleep;Ever she listened to his breathings deep,Or trimmed the midnight lamp that feebly burned.XV.Leaning her face on her handShe sat by the side of Hugh,Silently watching him breathe,As a lily curves its graceOver the broken formOf the twin which stood by its side.A glory upon her headTrailed from the light above,Gilding her tranquil hair.There, as she sat in a trance,Her soul flowed through the past,As a river, day and night,Passes through changeful shores,—Sees, on the twofold bank,Meadow and mossy grange,Castles on hoary crags,Forests, and fortressed towns,And shrinks from the widening bay,And the darkness which overhangsThe unknown, limitless sea.Was it a troubled dream,All that the stream of her lifeHad mirrored along its course?All—from that summer mornWhen she seemed to meet in the fieldOne whom she vowed to love,And with whom she wandered thence,Leaving the home of her youth?Were they visions indeed,—The pillars of smoke and flame,The sound of a hundred fights,The grandeur, and ah! the gloom,The shadows which circled her now,And the wraith of the one she lovedGliding away from her grasp,Vanishing swiftly and sure?Yes, it was all a dream;And the strange, sad man, who movedTo the other side of the couch,Bending over it long,Pressing his hand on his heart,And gazing, anon, in her eyes,—He, with his scanty hair,And pallid, repentant face,He, too, was a voiceless dream,A vision like all the rest;He with the rest would fadeWhen the day should dawn again,When the spectral mist of night,Fused with the golden morn,Should melt in the eastern sky.XVI.1.“Steady! forward the squadron!†criesThe dying soldier, and strives amainTo rise from the pillow and his pain.Wild and wandering are his eyes,Painting once more, on the empty air,The wrathful battle’s wavering glare.“Hugh!†said Alice, and checked her fear“Speak to me, Hugh; your father is here.â€â€œFather! what of my father? heIs anything but a father to me;What need I of a father, whenI have the hearts of a thousand men?â€â€œâ€”Alas, Sir, he knows not me nor you!â€And with caressing words, the twain—The man with all remorsefulness,The woman with loving tenderness—Soothed the soldier to rest anew,And, as the madness left his brain,Silently watched his sleep again.2.And again the father and the wife,Counting the precious sands of life,Looked each askance, with those subtle eyes,That probe through human mysteriesAnd hidden motives fathom well;But the mild regard of Alice fell,Meeting the other’s contrite glance,On his meek and furrowed countenance,Scathed, as it seemed, with troubled thought:“Surely, good angels have with him wrought,â€She murmured, and halted, even acrossThe sorrowful threshold of her loss,To pity his thin and changing hair,And her heart forgave him, unaware.3.And he,—who saw how she still represtA drear foreboding within her breast,And, by her wifehood’s nearest right,Ever more closely through the nightClave unto him whose quickened breathCame like a waft from the realm of Death,—He felt what a secret, powerful tieBound them in one, mysteriously.He studied her features, as she stoodLighting the shades of that woful placeWith the presence of her womanhood,And thought—as the dying son had thoughtWhen her beauty first his vision caught—“I never saw a fairer face;I never heard a sweeter voice!â€And a sad remembrance travelled fastThrough all the labyrinth of the past,Till he said, as the scales fell off at last,“How could I blame him for his choice?â€Then he looked upon the sword, which layAt the headboard, under the night-lamp’s ray;He saw the coat, the stains, the dust,The gilded eagles worn with rust,The swarthy forehead and matted hairOf the strong, brave hero lying there;And he felt how gently Hugh held command,—The life how gallant, the death how grand;And with trembling lips, and the words that choke,And the tears which burn the cheek, he spoke:“Where is the father who would not joyIn the manhood of such a noble boy?This life, which had being through my own,Was a better life than I have known;O that its fairness should be earth,Ere I could prize it at its worth!â€â€œToo late! too late!â€â€”he made his moan—“I find a daughter, and her alone.He deemed you worthy to bear his name,His spotless honor, his lasting fame:I, who have wronged you, bid you liveTo comfort the lonely—and forgive.â€4.Dim and silvery from the eastThe infant light of another mornOver the stirring camps was borne;But the soldier’s pulse had almost ceased,And there crept upon his brow the change—Ah, how sudden! alas, how strange!Yet again his eyelids opened wide,And his glances moved to either side,This time with a clear intelligenceWhich took all objects in its sense,A power to comprehend the wholeOf the scene that girded his passing soul.The father, who saw it, slowly drewNearer to her that wept anew,And gathered her tenderly in his hold,—As mortals their precious things enfold,Grasping them late and sure; and HughGazed on the two a space, and smiledWith the look he wore when a little child,—A smile of pride and peace, that meantA free forgiveness, a full content;Then his clouding sight an instant clungTo the flag whose stars above him hung,And his blunted senses seemed to hearThe long reveillée sounding near;But the ringing clarion could not vieWith the richer notes which filled his ear,Nor the breaking morn with that brighter sky.
4.Ah, tender heart of woman leal,Supple as wax and strong as steel!Thousands as faithful and as lone,Following each some dearest one,Found in those early months a homeUnder the brightness of that domeWhose argent arches for aye enfoldThe hopes of a people in their hold,—Irradiate, in the sight of allWho guard the Capital’s outer wall.Lastly came one, amid the rest,Whose form a sunburnt soldier prest,As lovers embrace in respite lentFrom unfulfilled imprisonment.And Alice found a new content:Dearer for perils that had beenWere short-lived meetings, far between;Better, for dangers yet to be,The moments she still his face could see.These, for the pure and loving wife,Were the silver bars that marked her life,That numbered the days melodiously;While, through all noble daring, HughFrom a Captain to a Colonel grew,And his praises sweetened every tongueThat reached her ear,—for old and youngGave him the gallant leader’s due.
Ah, tender heart of woman leal,
Supple as wax and strong as steel!
Thousands as faithful and as lone,
Following each some dearest one,
Found in those early months a home
Under the brightness of that dome
Whose argent arches for aye enfold
The hopes of a people in their hold,—
Irradiate, in the sight of all
Who guard the Capital’s outer wall.
Lastly came one, amid the rest,
Whose form a sunburnt soldier prest,
As lovers embrace in respite lent
From unfulfilled imprisonment.
And Alice found a new content:
Dearer for perils that had been
Were short-lived meetings, far between;
Better, for dangers yet to be,
The moments she still his face could see.
These, for the pure and loving wife,
Were the silver bars that marked her life,
That numbered the days melodiously;
While, through all noble daring, Hugh
From a Captain to a Colonel grew,
And his praises sweetened every tongue
That reached her ear,—for old and young
Gave him the gallant leader’s due.
X.1.Flight of a meteor through the sky,Scattering firebrands, arrows, and death,—A baleful year, that hurtled byWhile ancient kingdoms held their breath.
Flight of a meteor through the sky,
Scattering firebrands, arrows, and death,—
A baleful year, that hurtled by
While ancient kingdoms held their breath.
2.The Capital grew aghast with sightsFlashed from the lurid river-heights,Full of the fearful things sent down,By demons haunting the middle air,Into the hot, beleaguered town,—All woful sights and sounds, which seemThe fantasy of a sickly dream:Crowded wickedness everywhere;Everywhere a stifled senseOf the noonday-striding pestilence;Every church, from wall to wall,A closely-mattressed hospital;And ah! our bleeding heroes, broughtFrom smouldering fields so vainly fought,Filling each place where a man could lieTo gasp a dying wish—and die;While the sombre sky, relentlessly,Covered the town with a funeral-pall,A death-damp, trickling funeral-pall.
The Capital grew aghast with sights
Flashed from the lurid river-heights,
Full of the fearful things sent down,
By demons haunting the middle air,
Into the hot, beleaguered town,—
All woful sights and sounds, which seem
The fantasy of a sickly dream:
Crowded wickedness everywhere;
Everywhere a stifled sense
Of the noonday-striding pestilence;
Every church, from wall to wall,
A closely-mattressed hospital;
And ah! our bleeding heroes, brought
From smouldering fields so vainly fought,
Filling each place where a man could lie
To gasp a dying wish—and die;
While the sombre sky, relentlessly,
Covered the town with a funeral-pall,
A death-damp, trickling funeral-pall.
3.Always the dust and mire; the soundOf the rumbling wagon’s ceaseless round,The cannon jarring the trampled ground.The sad, unvarying picture wroughtUpon the pitying woman’s heartOf Alice, the Colonel’s wife, and taughtHer spirit to choose the better part,—The labor of loving angels, sentTo men in their sore encompassment.Daily her gentle steps were bentThrough the thin pathways which divideThe patient sufferers, side from side,In dolorous wards, where Death and LifeWage their silent, endless strife;And she gave to all her soothing words,Sweet as the songs of homestead birds.Sometimes that utterance musicalOn the soldier’s failing sense would fallSeeming, almost, a prelude givenOf whispers that calm the air of Heaven;While her white hand, moistening his poor lipsWith the draught which slakeless fever sips,Pointed him to that fount above,—River of water of life and love,—Stream without price, of whose purityWhoever thirsteth may freely buy.
Always the dust and mire; the sound
Of the rumbling wagon’s ceaseless round,
The cannon jarring the trampled ground.
The sad, unvarying picture wrought
Upon the pitying woman’s heart
Of Alice, the Colonel’s wife, and taught
Her spirit to choose the better part,—
The labor of loving angels, sent
To men in their sore encompassment.
Daily her gentle steps were bent
Through the thin pathways which divide
The patient sufferers, side from side,
In dolorous wards, where Death and Life
Wage their silent, endless strife;
And she gave to all her soothing words,
Sweet as the songs of homestead birds.
Sometimes that utterance musical
On the soldier’s failing sense would fall
Seeming, almost, a prelude given
Of whispers that calm the air of Heaven;
While her white hand, moistening his poor lips
With the draught which slakeless fever sips,
Pointed him to that fount above,—
River of water of life and love,—
Stream without price, of whose purity
Whoever thirsteth may freely buy.
4.How many—whom in their mortal painShe tended—’twas given her to gain,Through Him who died upon the rood,For that divine beatitude,Who of us all can ever knowTill the golden books their records show?But she saw their dying faces light,And felt a rapture in the sight.And many a sufferer’s earthly lifeThanked for new strength the Colonel’s wife;Many a soldier turned his head,Watching her pass his narrow bed,Or, haply, his feeble frame would raise,As the dim lamp her form revealed;And, like the children in the field,(For soldiers like little ones become,—As simple in heart, as frolicsome,)One and another breathed her name,Blessing her as she went and came.
How many—whom in their mortal pain
She tended—’twas given her to gain,
Through Him who died upon the rood,
For that divine beatitude,
Who of us all can ever know
Till the golden books their records show?
But she saw their dying faces light,
And felt a rapture in the sight.
And many a sufferer’s earthly life
Thanked for new strength the Colonel’s wife;
Many a soldier turned his head,
Watching her pass his narrow bed,
Or, haply, his feeble frame would raise,
As the dim lamp her form revealed;
And, like the children in the field,
(For soldiers like little ones become,—
As simple in heart, as frolicsome,)
One and another breathed her name,
Blessing her as she went and came.
5.So, through all actions pure and good,Unknowing evil, shame, or fear,She grew to perfect ladyhood,—Unwittingly the mate and peerOf the proudest of her husband’s blood.
So, through all actions pure and good,
Unknowing evil, shame, or fear,
She grew to perfect ladyhood,—
Unwittingly the mate and peer
Of the proudest of her husband’s blood.
XI.1.Like an affluent, royal town, the summer campsOf a hundred thousand men are stretched away.At night, like multitudinous city lamps,Their numberless watch-fires beacon, clear and still,And a glory beams from the zenith litWith lurid vapors that over its star-lights flit;But wreaths of opaline cloud o’erhang, by day,The crystal-pointed tents, from hill to hill,From vale to vale—untilThe heavens on endless peaks their curtain lay.A magical city! spread to-nightOn hills which slope within our sight:To-morrow, as at the waving of a wand,Tents, guidons, bannerols are moved afar,—Rising elsewhere, as rises a morning-star,Or the dream of Aladdin’s palace in fairy-land.
Like an affluent, royal town, the summer camps
Of a hundred thousand men are stretched away.
At night, like multitudinous city lamps,
Their numberless watch-fires beacon, clear and still,
And a glory beams from the zenith lit
With lurid vapors that over its star-lights flit;
But wreaths of opaline cloud o’erhang, by day,
The crystal-pointed tents, from hill to hill,
From vale to vale—until
The heavens on endless peaks their curtain lay.
A magical city! spread to-night
On hills which slope within our sight:
To-morrow, as at the waving of a wand,
Tents, guidons, bannerols are moved afar,—
Rising elsewhere, as rises a morning-star,
Or the dream of Aladdin’s palace in fairy-land.
2.Camp after camp, like marble square on square;Street following street, with many a park between;Bright bayonet-sparkles in the tremulous air;Far-fading, purple smoke above their sheen;Green central fields with flags like flowers abloom;And, all about, close-ordered, populous life:But here no festering trade, no civic strife,Only the blue-clad soldiers everywhere,Waiting to-morrow’s victory or doom,—Men of the hour, to whom these pictures seem,Like school-boy thoughts, half real, half a dream.
Camp after camp, like marble square on square;
Street following street, with many a park between;
Bright bayonet-sparkles in the tremulous air;
Far-fading, purple smoke above their sheen;
Green central fields with flags like flowers abloom;
And, all about, close-ordered, populous life:
But here no festering trade, no civic strife,
Only the blue-clad soldiers everywhere,
Waiting to-morrow’s victory or doom,—
Men of the hour, to whom these pictures seem,
Like school-boy thoughts, half real, half a dream.
3.Camps of the cavalry, apart,Are pitched with nicest artOn hilly suburbs where old forests grow.Here, by itself, one glimmers through the pines,—One whose high-hearted chief we know:A thousand men leap when his bugles blow;A thousand horses curvet at his lines,Pawing the turf; among them come and goThe jacketed troopers, changed by wind and rain,Storm, raid, and skirmish, sunshine, midnight dew,To bronzéd men who never ride in vain.
Camps of the cavalry, apart,
Are pitched with nicest art
On hilly suburbs where old forests grow.
Here, by itself, one glimmers through the pines,—
One whose high-hearted chief we know:
A thousand men leap when his bugles blow;
A thousand horses curvet at his lines,
Pawing the turf; among them come and go
The jacketed troopers, changed by wind and rain,
Storm, raid, and skirmish, sunshine, midnight dew,
To bronzéd men who never ride in vain.
4.In the great wall-tent at the head of the square,The Colonel hangs his sword, and thereHuge logs burn high in front at the close of the day;And the captains gather ere the long tattoo,While the banded buglers play;Then come the tales of home and the troopers’ song.Clear over the distant outposts float the notes,And the lone vidette to catch them listens long;And the officer of the guard, upon his round,Pauses, to hear the soundOf the chiming chorus poured from a score of throats:
In the great wall-tent at the head of the square,
The Colonel hangs his sword, and there
Huge logs burn high in front at the close of the day;
And the captains gather ere the long tattoo,
While the banded buglers play;
Then come the tales of home and the troopers’ song.
Clear over the distant outposts float the notes,
And the lone vidette to catch them listens long;
And the officer of the guard, upon his round,
Pauses, to hear the sound
Of the chiming chorus poured from a score of throats:
5.CAVALRY SONG.Our good steeds snuff the evening air,Our pulses with their purpose tingle;The foeman’s fires are twinkling there;He leaps to hear our sabres jingle!Halt!Each carbine send its whizzing ball:Now, cling! clang! forward all,Into the fight!
Our good steeds snuff the evening air,
Our pulses with their purpose tingle;
The foeman’s fires are twinkling there;
He leaps to hear our sabres jingle!
Halt!
Each carbine send its whizzing ball:
Now, cling! clang! forward all,
Into the fight!
Dash on beneath the smoking dome,Through level lightnings gallop nearer!One look to Heaven! No thoughts of home:The guidons that we bear are dearer.Charge!Cling! clang! forward all!Heaven help those whose horses fall!Cut left and right!
Dash on beneath the smoking dome,
Through level lightnings gallop nearer!
One look to Heaven! No thoughts of home:
The guidons that we bear are dearer.
Charge!
Cling! clang! forward all!
Heaven help those whose horses fall!
Cut left and right!
They flee before our fierce attack!They fall, they spread in broken surges!Now, comrades, bear our wounded back,And leave the foeman to his dirges.Wheel!The bugles sound the swift recall:Cling! clang! backward all!Home, and good night!
They flee before our fierce attack!
They fall, they spread in broken surges!
Now, comrades, bear our wounded back,
And leave the foeman to his dirges.
Wheel!
The bugles sound the swift recall:
Cling! clang! backward all!
Home, and good night!
XII.1.When April rains and the great spring-tideCover the lowlands far and wide,And eastern winds blow somewhat harshOver the salt and mildewed marsh,Then the grasses take deeper root,Sucking, athirst and resolute;And when the waters eddy away,Flowing in trenches to Newark Bay,The fibrous blades grow rank and tall,And from their tops the reed-birds call.Five miles in width the moor is spread;Two broad rivers its borders thread;The schooners which up their channels passSeem to be sailing in the grass,Save as they rise with the moon-drawn sea,Twice in the day, continuously.
When April rains and the great spring-tide
Cover the lowlands far and wide,
And eastern winds blow somewhat harsh
Over the salt and mildewed marsh,
Then the grasses take deeper root,
Sucking, athirst and resolute;
And when the waters eddy away,
Flowing in trenches to Newark Bay,
The fibrous blades grow rank and tall,
And from their tops the reed-birds call.
Five miles in width the moor is spread;
Two broad rivers its borders thread;
The schooners which up their channels pass
Seem to be sailing in the grass,
Save as they rise with the moon-drawn sea,
Twice in the day, continuously.
2.Gray with an inward struggle grown,The brooding lawyer, Hermann Van Ghelt,Lived at the mansion-house, alone;But a chilling cloud at his bosom felt,Like the fog which crept, at morn and night,Across the rivers in his sight,And rising, left the moorland plainBare and spectral and cold again.He saw the one tall hill, which stoodHuge with its quarry and gloaming wood,And the creeping engines, as they histThrough the dim reaches of the mist,—Serpents, with ominous eyes aglow,Thridding the grasses to and fro;And he thought how each dark, receding trainCarried its freight of joy and pain,On toil’s adventure and fortune’s quest,To the troubled city of unrest;And he knew that under the desolate pallOf the bleak horizon, skirting all,The burdened ocean heaved, and rolledIts moaning surges manifold.
Gray with an inward struggle grown,
The brooding lawyer, Hermann Van Ghelt,
Lived at the mansion-house, alone;
But a chilling cloud at his bosom felt,
Like the fog which crept, at morn and night,
Across the rivers in his sight,
And rising, left the moorland plain
Bare and spectral and cold again.
He saw the one tall hill, which stood
Huge with its quarry and gloaming wood,
And the creeping engines, as they hist
Through the dim reaches of the mist,—
Serpents, with ominous eyes aglow,
Thridding the grasses to and fro;
And he thought how each dark, receding train
Carried its freight of joy and pain,
On toil’s adventure and fortune’s quest,
To the troubled city of unrest;
And he knew that under the desolate pall
Of the bleak horizon, skirting all,
The burdened ocean heaved, and rolled
Its moaning surges manifold.
3.Often at evening, gazing throughThe eastward windows on such a view,Its sense enwrapt him as with a shroud;Often at noon, in the city’s crowd,He saw, as ’twere in a mystic glass,Unbidden faces before him pass:A soldier, with eyes unawed and mildAs the eyes of one who was his child;A woman’s visage, like that which blestA year of his better years the best;And the plea of a voice, remembered well,Deep in his secret hearing fell.And as week by week its records broughtOf heroes fallen as they fought,There little by little awakenédIn the lawyer’s heart a shapeless dread,A fear of the tidings which of allOn ear and spirit heaviest fall,—Changeless sentence of mortal fate,Freezing the marrow with—Too Late!
Often at evening, gazing through
The eastward windows on such a view,
Its sense enwrapt him as with a shroud;
Often at noon, in the city’s crowd,
He saw, as ’twere in a mystic glass,
Unbidden faces before him pass:
A soldier, with eyes unawed and mild
As the eyes of one who was his child;
A woman’s visage, like that which blest
A year of his better years the best;
And the plea of a voice, remembered well,
Deep in his secret hearing fell.
And as week by week its records brought
Of heroes fallen as they fought,
There little by little awakenéd
In the lawyer’s heart a shapeless dread,
A fear of the tidings which of all
On ear and spirit heaviest fall,—
Changeless sentence of mortal fate,
Freezing the marrow with—Too Late!
XIII.1.Thus,—when ended the morning tramp,And the regiment came back to camp,And the Colonel, breathing hard with pain,Was carried within the lines again,—Thus a Color-Sergeant toldThe story of that skirmish bold:
Thus,—when ended the morning tramp,
And the regiment came back to camp,
And the Colonel, breathing hard with pain,
Was carried within the lines again,—
Thus a Color-Sergeant told
The story of that skirmish bold:
2.“’Twas an hour past midnight, twelve hours ago,—We were all asleep, you know,Save the officer on his rounds,And the guard-relief,—when soundsThe signal-gun! once—twice—Thrice! and then, in a trice,The long assembly-call rang sharp and clear,Till ‘Boots and Saddles’ made us scamper like mice.No time to wasteIn asking whether a fight was near;Over the horses went their traps in haste;Not ten minutes had pastEre we stood in marching gear,And the call of the roll was followed by orders fast:‘Prepare to mount!’‘Mount!’—and the company ranks were made;Then in each rank, by fours, we took the count,And the head of the column wheeled for the long parade.
“’Twas an hour past midnight, twelve hours ago,—
We were all asleep, you know,
Save the officer on his rounds,
And the guard-relief,—when sounds
The signal-gun! once—twice—
Thrice! and then, in a trice,
The long assembly-call rang sharp and clear,
Till ‘Boots and Saddles’ made us scamper like mice.
No time to waste
In asking whether a fight was near;
Over the horses went their traps in haste;
Not ten minutes had past
Ere we stood in marching gear,
And the call of the roll was followed by orders fast:
‘Prepare to mount!’
‘Mount!’—and the company ranks were made;
Then in each rank, by fours, we took the count,
And the head of the column wheeled for the long parade.
3.“There, on the beaten ground,The regiment formed from right to left;Our Colonel, straight in his saddle, looked around,Reining the stallion in, that felt the heftOf his rider, and stamped his foot, and wanted to dance.At last the order came:‘By twos: forward, march!’—and the sameFrom each officer in advance;And, as the rear-guard left the spot,We broke into the even trot.
“There, on the beaten ground,
The regiment formed from right to left;
Our Colonel, straight in his saddle, looked around,
Reining the stallion in, that felt the heft
Of his rider, and stamped his foot, and wanted to dance.
At last the order came:
‘By twos: forward, march!’—and the same
From each officer in advance;
And, as the rear-guard left the spot,
We broke into the even trot.
4.“‘Trot, march!’—two by two,In the dust and in the dew,Roads and open meadows through.Steadily we kept the tuneUnderneath the stars and moon.None, except the Colonel, knewWhat our orders were to do;Whether on a forage-raidWe were tramping, boot and blade,Or a close reconnoissanceEre the army should advance;One thing certain, we were boundStraight for Stuart’s camping-ground.Plunging into forest-shade,Well we knew each glen and glade!Sweet they smelled, the pine and oak,And of home my comrade spoke.Tramp, tramp, out again,Sheer across the ragged plain,Where the moonbeams glaze our steelAnd the fresher air we feel.Thus a triple league, and more,Till behind us spreads the gray,Pallid light of breaking day,And on cloudy hills, before,Rebel camp-fires smoke away.Hard by yonder clump of pinesWe should touch the rebel lines:‘Walk, march!’ and, softly now,Gain yon hillock’s westward brow.
“‘Trot, march!’—two by two,
In the dust and in the dew,
Roads and open meadows through.
Steadily we kept the tune
Underneath the stars and moon.
None, except the Colonel, knew
What our orders were to do;
Whether on a forage-raid
We were tramping, boot and blade,
Or a close reconnoissance
Ere the army should advance;
One thing certain, we were bound
Straight for Stuart’s camping-ground.
Plunging into forest-shade,
Well we knew each glen and glade!
Sweet they smelled, the pine and oak,
And of home my comrade spoke.
Tramp, tramp, out again,
Sheer across the ragged plain,
Where the moonbeams glaze our steel
And the fresher air we feel.
Thus a triple league, and more,
Till behind us spreads the gray,
Pallid light of breaking day,
And on cloudy hills, before,
Rebel camp-fires smoke away.
Hard by yonder clump of pines
We should touch the rebel lines:
‘Walk, march!’ and, softly now,
Gain yon hillock’s westward brow.
5.“‘Halt!’ and ‘Right into line!’—There on the ridgeIn battle-order we let the horses breathe;The Colonel raised his glass and scanned the bridge,The tents on the bank beyond, the stream beneath.Just then the sun first broke from the redder east,And their pickets saw five hundred of us, at least,Stretched like a dark stockade against the sky;We heard their long-roll clamor loud and nigh:In half a minute a rumbling battery whirledTo a mound in front, unlimbering with a will,And a twelve-pound solid shot came right along,Singing a devilish morning-song,And touched my comrade’s leg, and the poor boy curledAnd dropt to the turf, holding his bridle still.Well, we moved out of range,—were wheeling round,I think, for the Colonel had taken his look at their ground,(Thus he was ordered, it seems, and nothing more:Hardly worth coming at midnight for!)When, over the bridge, a troop of the enemy’s horseDashed out upon our course,Giving us hope of a tussle to warm our blood.Then we cheered, to a man, that our early callHadn’t been sounded for nothing, after all;And halting, to wait their movements, the column stood.
“‘Halt!’ and ‘Right into line!’—There on the ridge
In battle-order we let the horses breathe;
The Colonel raised his glass and scanned the bridge,
The tents on the bank beyond, the stream beneath.
Just then the sun first broke from the redder east,
And their pickets saw five hundred of us, at least,
Stretched like a dark stockade against the sky;
We heard their long-roll clamor loud and nigh:
In half a minute a rumbling battery whirled
To a mound in front, unlimbering with a will,
And a twelve-pound solid shot came right along,
Singing a devilish morning-song,
And touched my comrade’s leg, and the poor boy curled
And dropt to the turf, holding his bridle still.
Well, we moved out of range,—were wheeling round,
I think, for the Colonel had taken his look at their ground,
(Thus he was ordered, it seems, and nothing more:
Hardly worth coming at midnight for!)
When, over the bridge, a troop of the enemy’s horse
Dashed out upon our course,
Giving us hope of a tussle to warm our blood.
Then we cheered, to a man, that our early call
Hadn’t been sounded for nothing, after all;
And halting, to wait their movements, the column stood.
6.“Then into squadrons we saw their ranks enlarge,And slow and steady they moved to the charge,Shaking the ground as they came in carbine-range.‘Front into line! March! Halt! Front!’Our Colonel cried; and in squadrons, to meet the brunt,We too from the walk to the trot our paces change:‘Gallop, march!’—and, hot for the fray,Pistols and sabres drawn, we canter away.
“Then into squadrons we saw their ranks enlarge,
And slow and steady they moved to the charge,
Shaking the ground as they came in carbine-range.
‘Front into line! March! Halt! Front!’
Our Colonel cried; and in squadrons, to meet the brunt,
We too from the walk to the trot our paces change:
‘Gallop, march!’—and, hot for the fray,
Pistols and sabres drawn, we canter away.
7.“Twenty rods over the slippery cloverWe galloped as gayly as lady and lover;Held the reins lightly, our good weapons tightly,Five solid squadrons all shining and sightly;Not too fast, half the strength of our brave steeds to wasten,Not too slow, for the warmth of their fire made us hasten,As it came with a rattle and opened the battle,Tumbling from saddles ten fellows of mettle.So the distance grew shorter, their sabres shone broader;Then the bugle’s wild blare and the Colonel’s loud order,—
“Twenty rods over the slippery clover
We galloped as gayly as lady and lover;
Held the reins lightly, our good weapons tightly,
Five solid squadrons all shining and sightly;
Not too fast, half the strength of our brave steeds to wasten,
Not too slow, for the warmth of their fire made us hasten,
As it came with a rattle and opened the battle,
Tumbling from saddles ten fellows of mettle.
So the distance grew shorter, their sabres shone broader;
Then the bugle’s wild blare and the Colonel’s loud order,—
“Charge!†and we sprang, while the far echo rang,And their bullets, like bees, in our ears fiercely sang.Forward we strode to pay what we owed,Right at the head of their column we rode;Together we dashed, and the air reeled and flashed;Stirrups, sabres, and scabbards all shattered and crashedAs we cut in and out, right and left, all about,Hand to hand, blow for blow, shot for shot, shout for shout,Till the earth seemed to boil with the heat of our toil.But in less than five minutes we felt them recoil,Heard their shrill rally sound, and, like hares from the hound,Each ran for himself: one and all fled the ground!Then we goaded them up to their guns, where they cowered,And the breeze cleared the field where the battle-cloud lowered.Threescore of them lay, to teach them the wayVan Ghelt and his rangers their compliments pay.But a plenty, I swear, of our saddles were bare;Friend and foe, horse and rider, lay sprawled everywhere:’Twas hard hitting, you see, Sir, that gained us the day!
“Charge!†and we sprang, while the far echo rang,
And their bullets, like bees, in our ears fiercely sang.
Forward we strode to pay what we owed,
Right at the head of their column we rode;
Together we dashed, and the air reeled and flashed;
Stirrups, sabres, and scabbards all shattered and crashed
As we cut in and out, right and left, all about,
Hand to hand, blow for blow, shot for shot, shout for shout,
Till the earth seemed to boil with the heat of our toil.
But in less than five minutes we felt them recoil,
Heard their shrill rally sound, and, like hares from the hound,
Each ran for himself: one and all fled the ground!
Then we goaded them up to their guns, where they cowered,
And the breeze cleared the field where the battle-cloud lowered.
Threescore of them lay, to teach them the way
Van Ghelt and his rangers their compliments pay.
But a plenty, I swear, of our saddles were bare;
Friend and foe, horse and rider, lay sprawled everywhere:
’Twas hard hitting, you see, Sir, that gained us the day!
8.“Yes, they too had their say before they fled,And the loss of our Colonel is worse than all the rest.One of their captains aimed at him, as he ledThe foremost charge—I shot the rascal dead,But the Colonel fell, with a bullet through his breast.We lifted him from the mire, when the field was won,And their captured colors shaded him from the sunIn the farmer’s wagon we took for his homeward ride;But he never said a word, nor opened his eyes,Till we reached the camp. In yon hospital tent he lies,And his poor young wife will come to watch by his side.The surgeon hasn’t found the bullet, as yet,But he says it’s a mortal wound. Where will you getAnother such man to lead us, if he dies?â€
“Yes, they too had their say before they fled,
And the loss of our Colonel is worse than all the rest.
One of their captains aimed at him, as he led
The foremost charge—I shot the rascal dead,
But the Colonel fell, with a bullet through his breast.
We lifted him from the mire, when the field was won,
And their captured colors shaded him from the sun
In the farmer’s wagon we took for his homeward ride;
But he never said a word, nor opened his eyes,
Till we reached the camp. In yon hospital tent he lies,
And his poor young wife will come to watch by his side.
The surgeon hasn’t found the bullet, as yet,
But he says it’s a mortal wound. Where will you get
Another such man to lead us, if he dies?â€
XIV.1.Sprung was the bow at last;And the barbed and pointed dart,Keen with stings of the past,Barbed with a vain remorse,Clove for itself a courseStraight to the father’s heart;And a lonely wanderer stood,Mazed in a mist of thought,On the edge of a field of blood.—For a battle had been fought,And the cavalry skirmish was but a wild preludeTo the broader carnage that heaped a field in vain:A terrible battle had been fought,Till its changeful current broughtTumultuous, angry surges roaring backTo the lines where our army had lain.The lawyer, driven hard by an inward pain,Was crossing, in search of a dying son, the trackWhere the deluge rose and fell, and its stranded wrackHad sown the loathing earth with human slain.
Sprung was the bow at last;
And the barbed and pointed dart,
Keen with stings of the past,
Barbed with a vain remorse,
Clove for itself a course
Straight to the father’s heart;
And a lonely wanderer stood,
Mazed in a mist of thought,
On the edge of a field of blood.
—For a battle had been fought,
And the cavalry skirmish was but a wild prelude
To the broader carnage that heaped a field in vain:
A terrible battle had been fought,
Till its changeful current brought
Tumultuous, angry surges roaring back
To the lines where our army had lain.
The lawyer, driven hard by an inward pain,
Was crossing, in search of a dying son, the track
Where the deluge rose and fell, and its stranded wrack
Had sown the loathing earth with human slain.
2.Friends and foes,—who could discover which,As they marked the zigzag, outer ditch,Or lay so cold and still in the bush,Fallen and trampled down in the last wild rush?Then the shattered forest-trees; the clearing thereWhere a battery stood; dead horses, pawing the airWith horrible upright hoofs; a mangled massOf wounded and stifled men in the low morass;And the long trench dug in haste for a burial-pit,Whose yawning length and breadth all comers fit.
Friends and foes,—who could discover which,
As they marked the zigzag, outer ditch,
Or lay so cold and still in the bush,
Fallen and trampled down in the last wild rush?
Then the shattered forest-trees; the clearing there
Where a battery stood; dead horses, pawing the air
With horrible upright hoofs; a mangled mass
Of wounded and stifled men in the low morass;
And the long trench dug in haste for a burial-pit,
Whose yawning length and breadth all comers fit.
3.And over the dreadful precinct, like the lightsThat flit through graveyard walks in dismal nights,Men with lanterns were groping among the dead,Holding the flame to every hueless face,And bearing those whose life had not wholly fledOn stretchers, that looked like biers, from the ghastly place.
And over the dreadful precinct, like the lights
That flit through graveyard walks in dismal nights,
Men with lanterns were groping among the dead,
Holding the flame to every hueless face,
And bearing those whose life had not wholly fled
On stretchers, that looked like biers, from the ghastly place.
4.The air above seemed heavy with errant souls,Dense with ghosts from those gory forms arisen,—Each rudely driven from its prison,’Mid the harsh jar of rattling musket-rolls,And quivering throes, and unexpected force;In helpless waves adrift confusedly,Freighting the sombre haze without resource.Through all there trickled, from the pitying sky,An infinite mist of tears upon the ground,Muffling the groans of anguish with its sound.
The air above seemed heavy with errant souls,
Dense with ghosts from those gory forms arisen,—
Each rudely driven from its prison,
’Mid the harsh jar of rattling musket-rolls,
And quivering throes, and unexpected force;
In helpless waves adrift confusedly,
Freighting the sombre haze without resource.
Through all there trickled, from the pitying sky,
An infinite mist of tears upon the ground,
Muffling the groans of anguish with its sound.
5.On the borders of such a land, on the bounds of Death,The stranger, shuddering, moved as one who saith:“God! what a doleful clime, a drear domain!â€And onward, struggling with his pain,Traversed the endless camp-fires, spark by spark,Past sentinels that challenged from the dark,Guided through camp and camp to one long tentWhose ridge a flying bolt from the field had rent,Letting the midnight mist, the battle din,Fall on the hundred forms that writhed within.
On the borders of such a land, on the bounds of Death,
The stranger, shuddering, moved as one who saith:
“God! what a doleful clime, a drear domain!â€
And onward, struggling with his pain,
Traversed the endless camp-fires, spark by spark,
Past sentinels that challenged from the dark,
Guided through camp and camp to one long tent
Whose ridge a flying bolt from the field had rent,
Letting the midnight mist, the battle din,
Fall on the hundred forms that writhed within.
6.Beyond the gaunt Zouave at the nearest cot,And the bugler shot in the arm, who lay beside(Looking down at the wounded spotEven then, for all the pain, with boyish pride),And a score of men, with blankets opened wide,Showing the gory bandages which boundThe paths of many a deadly wound,—Over all these the stranger’s glances spedTo one low stretcher, at whose headA woman, bowed and brooding, sate,As sit the angels of our fate,Who, motionless, our births and deaths await.He whom she tended moaned and tost,Restless, as some laborious vessel, lostClose to the port for which we saw it sail,Groans in the long perpetual gale;But she, that watched the storm, forbore to weep.Sometimes the stranger saw her moveTo others, who also with their anguish strove;But ever again her constant footsteps turnedTo one who made sad mutterings in his sleep;Ever she listened to his breathings deep,Or trimmed the midnight lamp that feebly burned.
Beyond the gaunt Zouave at the nearest cot,
And the bugler shot in the arm, who lay beside
(Looking down at the wounded spot
Even then, for all the pain, with boyish pride),
And a score of men, with blankets opened wide,
Showing the gory bandages which bound
The paths of many a deadly wound,
—Over all these the stranger’s glances sped
To one low stretcher, at whose head
A woman, bowed and brooding, sate,
As sit the angels of our fate,
Who, motionless, our births and deaths await.
He whom she tended moaned and tost,
Restless, as some laborious vessel, lost
Close to the port for which we saw it sail,
Groans in the long perpetual gale;
But she, that watched the storm, forbore to weep.
Sometimes the stranger saw her move
To others, who also with their anguish strove;
But ever again her constant footsteps turned
To one who made sad mutterings in his sleep;
Ever she listened to his breathings deep,
Or trimmed the midnight lamp that feebly burned.
XV.Leaning her face on her handShe sat by the side of Hugh,Silently watching him breathe,As a lily curves its graceOver the broken formOf the twin which stood by its side.A glory upon her headTrailed from the light above,Gilding her tranquil hair.There, as she sat in a trance,Her soul flowed through the past,As a river, day and night,Passes through changeful shores,—Sees, on the twofold bank,Meadow and mossy grange,Castles on hoary crags,Forests, and fortressed towns,And shrinks from the widening bay,And the darkness which overhangsThe unknown, limitless sea.Was it a troubled dream,All that the stream of her lifeHad mirrored along its course?All—from that summer mornWhen she seemed to meet in the fieldOne whom she vowed to love,And with whom she wandered thence,Leaving the home of her youth?Were they visions indeed,—The pillars of smoke and flame,The sound of a hundred fights,The grandeur, and ah! the gloom,The shadows which circled her now,And the wraith of the one she lovedGliding away from her grasp,Vanishing swiftly and sure?Yes, it was all a dream;And the strange, sad man, who movedTo the other side of the couch,Bending over it long,Pressing his hand on his heart,And gazing, anon, in her eyes,—He, with his scanty hair,And pallid, repentant face,He, too, was a voiceless dream,A vision like all the rest;He with the rest would fadeWhen the day should dawn again,When the spectral mist of night,Fused with the golden morn,Should melt in the eastern sky.
Leaning her face on her hand
She sat by the side of Hugh,
Silently watching him breathe,
As a lily curves its grace
Over the broken form
Of the twin which stood by its side.
A glory upon her head
Trailed from the light above,
Gilding her tranquil hair.
There, as she sat in a trance,
Her soul flowed through the past,
As a river, day and night,
Passes through changeful shores,—
Sees, on the twofold bank,
Meadow and mossy grange,
Castles on hoary crags,
Forests, and fortressed towns,
And shrinks from the widening bay,
And the darkness which overhangs
The unknown, limitless sea.
Was it a troubled dream,
All that the stream of her life
Had mirrored along its course?
All—from that summer morn
When she seemed to meet in the field
One whom she vowed to love,
And with whom she wandered thence,
Leaving the home of her youth?
Were they visions indeed,—
The pillars of smoke and flame,
The sound of a hundred fights,
The grandeur, and ah! the gloom,
The shadows which circled her now,
And the wraith of the one she loved
Gliding away from her grasp,
Vanishing swiftly and sure?
Yes, it was all a dream;
And the strange, sad man, who moved
To the other side of the couch,
Bending over it long,
Pressing his hand on his heart,
And gazing, anon, in her eyes,—
He, with his scanty hair,
And pallid, repentant face,
He, too, was a voiceless dream,
A vision like all the rest;
He with the rest would fade
When the day should dawn again,
When the spectral mist of night,
Fused with the golden morn,
Should melt in the eastern sky.
XVI.1.“Steady! forward the squadron!†criesThe dying soldier, and strives amainTo rise from the pillow and his pain.Wild and wandering are his eyes,Painting once more, on the empty air,The wrathful battle’s wavering glare.“Hugh!†said Alice, and checked her fear“Speak to me, Hugh; your father is here.â€â€œFather! what of my father? heIs anything but a father to me;What need I of a father, whenI have the hearts of a thousand men?â€â€œâ€”Alas, Sir, he knows not me nor you!â€And with caressing words, the twain—The man with all remorsefulness,The woman with loving tenderness—Soothed the soldier to rest anew,And, as the madness left his brain,Silently watched his sleep again.
“Steady! forward the squadron!†cries
The dying soldier, and strives amain
To rise from the pillow and his pain.
Wild and wandering are his eyes,
Painting once more, on the empty air,
The wrathful battle’s wavering glare.
“Hugh!†said Alice, and checked her fear
“Speak to me, Hugh; your father is here.â€
“Father! what of my father? he
Is anything but a father to me;
What need I of a father, when
I have the hearts of a thousand men?â€
“—Alas, Sir, he knows not me nor you!â€
And with caressing words, the twain—
The man with all remorsefulness,
The woman with loving tenderness—
Soothed the soldier to rest anew,
And, as the madness left his brain,
Silently watched his sleep again.
2.And again the father and the wife,Counting the precious sands of life,Looked each askance, with those subtle eyes,That probe through human mysteriesAnd hidden motives fathom well;But the mild regard of Alice fell,Meeting the other’s contrite glance,On his meek and furrowed countenance,Scathed, as it seemed, with troubled thought:“Surely, good angels have with him wrought,â€She murmured, and halted, even acrossThe sorrowful threshold of her loss,To pity his thin and changing hair,And her heart forgave him, unaware.
And again the father and the wife,
Counting the precious sands of life,
Looked each askance, with those subtle eyes,
That probe through human mysteries
And hidden motives fathom well;
But the mild regard of Alice fell,
Meeting the other’s contrite glance,
On his meek and furrowed countenance,
Scathed, as it seemed, with troubled thought:
“Surely, good angels have with him wrought,â€
She murmured, and halted, even across
The sorrowful threshold of her loss,
To pity his thin and changing hair,
And her heart forgave him, unaware.
3.And he,—who saw how she still represtA drear foreboding within her breast,And, by her wifehood’s nearest right,Ever more closely through the nightClave unto him whose quickened breathCame like a waft from the realm of Death,—He felt what a secret, powerful tieBound them in one, mysteriously.He studied her features, as she stoodLighting the shades of that woful placeWith the presence of her womanhood,And thought—as the dying son had thoughtWhen her beauty first his vision caught—“I never saw a fairer face;I never heard a sweeter voice!â€And a sad remembrance travelled fastThrough all the labyrinth of the past,Till he said, as the scales fell off at last,“How could I blame him for his choice?â€Then he looked upon the sword, which layAt the headboard, under the night-lamp’s ray;He saw the coat, the stains, the dust,The gilded eagles worn with rust,The swarthy forehead and matted hairOf the strong, brave hero lying there;And he felt how gently Hugh held command,—The life how gallant, the death how grand;And with trembling lips, and the words that choke,And the tears which burn the cheek, he spoke:“Where is the father who would not joyIn the manhood of such a noble boy?This life, which had being through my own,Was a better life than I have known;O that its fairness should be earth,Ere I could prize it at its worth!â€â€œToo late! too late!â€â€”he made his moan—“I find a daughter, and her alone.He deemed you worthy to bear his name,His spotless honor, his lasting fame:I, who have wronged you, bid you liveTo comfort the lonely—and forgive.â€
And he,—who saw how she still represt
A drear foreboding within her breast,
And, by her wifehood’s nearest right,
Ever more closely through the night
Clave unto him whose quickened breath
Came like a waft from the realm of Death,—
He felt what a secret, powerful tie
Bound them in one, mysteriously.
He studied her features, as she stood
Lighting the shades of that woful place
With the presence of her womanhood,
And thought—as the dying son had thought
When her beauty first his vision caught—
“I never saw a fairer face;
I never heard a sweeter voice!â€
And a sad remembrance travelled fast
Through all the labyrinth of the past,
Till he said, as the scales fell off at last,
“How could I blame him for his choice?â€
Then he looked upon the sword, which lay
At the headboard, under the night-lamp’s ray;
He saw the coat, the stains, the dust,
The gilded eagles worn with rust,
The swarthy forehead and matted hair
Of the strong, brave hero lying there;
And he felt how gently Hugh held command,—
The life how gallant, the death how grand;
And with trembling lips, and the words that choke,
And the tears which burn the cheek, he spoke:
“Where is the father who would not joy
In the manhood of such a noble boy?
This life, which had being through my own,
Was a better life than I have known;
O that its fairness should be earth,
Ere I could prize it at its worth!â€
“Too late! too late!â€â€”he made his moan—
“I find a daughter, and her alone.
He deemed you worthy to bear his name,
His spotless honor, his lasting fame:
I, who have wronged you, bid you live
To comfort the lonely—and forgive.â€
4.Dim and silvery from the eastThe infant light of another mornOver the stirring camps was borne;But the soldier’s pulse had almost ceased,And there crept upon his brow the change—Ah, how sudden! alas, how strange!Yet again his eyelids opened wide,And his glances moved to either side,This time with a clear intelligenceWhich took all objects in its sense,A power to comprehend the wholeOf the scene that girded his passing soul.The father, who saw it, slowly drewNearer to her that wept anew,And gathered her tenderly in his hold,—As mortals their precious things enfold,Grasping them late and sure; and HughGazed on the two a space, and smiledWith the look he wore when a little child,—A smile of pride and peace, that meantA free forgiveness, a full content;Then his clouding sight an instant clungTo the flag whose stars above him hung,And his blunted senses seemed to hearThe long reveillée sounding near;But the ringing clarion could not vieWith the richer notes which filled his ear,Nor the breaking morn with that brighter sky.
Dim and silvery from the east
The infant light of another morn
Over the stirring camps was borne;
But the soldier’s pulse had almost ceased,
And there crept upon his brow the change—
Ah, how sudden! alas, how strange!
Yet again his eyelids opened wide,
And his glances moved to either side,
This time with a clear intelligence
Which took all objects in its sense,
A power to comprehend the whole
Of the scene that girded his passing soul.
The father, who saw it, slowly drew
Nearer to her that wept anew,
And gathered her tenderly in his hold,—
As mortals their precious things enfold,
Grasping them late and sure; and Hugh
Gazed on the two a space, and smiled
With the look he wore when a little child,—
A smile of pride and peace, that meant
A free forgiveness, a full content;
Then his clouding sight an instant clung
To the flag whose stars above him hung,
And his blunted senses seemed to hear
The long reveillée sounding near;
But the ringing clarion could not vie
With the richer notes which filled his ear,
Nor the breaking morn with that brighter sky.