Aloft he guards the starry folds
Who is the brother of the star;
The bird whose joy is in the wind
Exultleth in the war.
No painted plume--a sober hue,
His beauty is his power;
That eager calm of gaze intent
Foresees the Sibyl’s hour.
Austere, he crowns the swaying perch,
Flapped by the angry flag;
The hurricane from the battery sings,
But his claw has known the crag.
Amid the scream of shells, his scream
Runs shrilling; and the glare
Of eyes that brave the blinding sun
The vollied flame can bear.
The pride of quenchless strength is his--
Strength which, though chained, avails;
The very rebel looks and thrills--
The anchored Emblem hails.
Though scarred in many a furious fray,
No deadly hurt he knew;
Well may we think his years are charmed--
The Eagle of the Blue.
A Dirge for McPherson,[13]
Killed in front of Atlanta.
(July, 1864.)
Arms reversed and banners craped--
Muffled drums;
Snowy horses sable-draped--
McPherson comes.
_But, tell us, shall we know him more,
Lost-Mountain and lone Kenesaw?_
Brave the sword upon the pall--
A gleam in gloom;
So a bright name lighteth all
McPherson’s doom.
Bear him through the chapel-door--
Let priest in stole
Pace before the warrior
Who led. Bell--toll!
Lay him down within the nave,
The Lesson read--
Man is noble, man is brave,
But man’s--a weed.
Take him up again and wend
Graveward, nor weep:
There’s a trumpet that shall rend
This Soldier’s sleep.
Pass the ropes the coffin round,
And let descend;
Prayer and volley--let it sound
McPherson’s end.
_True fame is his, for life is o’er--
Sarpedon of the mighty war._
At the Cannon’s Mouth.
Destruction of the Ram Albermarle by the Torpedo-Launch.
(October, 1864.)
Palely intent, he urged his keel
Full on the guns, and touched the spring;
Himself involved in the bolt he drove
Timed with the armed hull’s shot that stove
His shallop--die or do!
Into the flood his life he threw,
Yet lives--unscathed--a breathing thing
To marvel at.
He has his fame;
But that mad dash at death, how name?
Had Earth no charm to stay the Boy
From the martyr-passion? Could he dare
Disdain the Paradise of opening joy
Which beckons the fresh heart every where?
Life has more lures than any girl
For youth and strength; puts forth a share
Of beauty, hinting of yet rarer store;
And ever with unfathomable eyes,
Which baffingly entice,
Still strangely does Adonis draw.
And life once over, who shall tell the rest?
Life is, of all we know, God’s best.
What imps these eagles then, that they
Fling disrespect on life by that proud way
In which they soar above our lower clay.
Pretense of wonderment and doubt unblest:
In Cushing’s eager deed was shown
A spirit which brave poets own--
That scorn of life which earns life’s crown;
Earns, but not always wins; but he--
The star ascended in his nativity.
The March to the Sea.
(December, 1864.)
Not Kenesaw high-arching,
Nor Allatoona’s glen--
Though there the graves lie parching--
Stayed Sherman’s miles of men;
From charred Atlanta marching
They launched the sword again.
The columns streamed like rivers
Which in their course agree,
And they streamed until their flashing
Met the flashing of the sea:
It was glorious glad marching,
That marching to the sea.
They brushed the foe before them
(Shall gnats impede the bull?);
Their own good bridges bore them
Over swamps or torrents full,
And the grand pines waving o’er them
Bowed to axes keen and cool.
The columns grooved their channels.
Enforced their own decree,
And their power met nothing larger
Until it met the sea:
It was glorious glad marching,
A marching glad and free.
Kilpatrick’s snare of riders
In zigzags mazed the land,
Perplexed the pale Southsiders
With feints on every hand;
Vague menace awed the hiders
In forts beyond command.
To Sherman’s shifting problem
No foeman knew the key;
But onward went the marching
Unpausing to the sea:
It was glorious glad marching,
The swinging step was free.
The flankers ranged like pigeons
In clouds through field or wood;
The flocks of all those regions,
The herds and horses good,
Poured in and swelled the legions,
For they caught the marching mood.
A volley ahead! They hear it;
And they hear the repartee:
Fighting was but frolic
In that marching to the sea:
It was glorious glad marching,
A marching bold and free.
All nature felt their coming,
The birds like couriers flew,
And the banners brightly blooming
The slaves by thousands drew,
And they marched beside the drumming,
And they joined the armies blue.
The cocks crowed from the cannon
(Pets named from Grant and Lee),
Plumed fighters and campaigners
In the marching to the sea:
It was glorious glad marching,
For every man was free.
The foragers through calm lands
Swept in tempest gay,
And they breathed the air of balm-lands
Where rolled savannas lay,
And they helped themselves from farm-lands--
As who should say them nay?
The regiments uproarious
Laughed in Plenty’s glee;
And they marched till their broad laughter
Met the laughter of the sea:
It was glorious glad marching,
That marching to the sea.
The grain of endless acres
Was threshed (as in the East)
By the trampling of the Takers,
Strong march of man and beast;
The flails of those earth-shakers
Left a famine where they ceased.
The arsenals were yielded;
The sword (that was to be),
Arrested in the forging,
Rued that marching to the sea:
It was glorious glad marching,
But ah, the stern decree!
For behind they left a wailing,
A terror and a ban,
And blazing cinders sailing,
And houseless households wan,
Wide zones of counties paling,
And towns where maniacs ran.
Was it Treason’s retribution--
Necessity the plea?
They will long remember Sherman
And his streaming columns free--
They will long remember Sherman
Marching to the sea.
The Frenzy in the Wake.[14]
Sherman’s advance through the Carolinas.
(February, 1865.)
So strong to suffer, shall we be
Weak to contend, and break
The sinews of the Oppressor’s knee
That grinds upon the neck?
O, the garments rolled in blood
Scorch in cities wrapped in flame,
And the African--the imp!
He gibbers, imputing shame.
Shall Time, avenging every woe,
To us that joy allot
Which Israel thrilled when Sisera’s brow
Showed gaunt and showed the clot?
Curse on their foreheads, cheeks, and eyes--
The Northern faces--true
To the flag we hate, the flag whose stars
Like planets strike us through.
From frozen Maine they come,
Far Minnesota too;
They come to a sun whose rays disown--
May it wither them as the dew!
The ghosts of our slain appeal:
“Vain shall our victories be”
But back from its ebb the flood recoils--
Back in a whelming sea.
With burning woods our skies are brass,
The pillars of dust are seen;
The live-long day their cavalry pass--
No crossing the road between.
We were sore deceived--an awful host!
They move like a roaring wind.
Have we gamed and lost? but even despair
Shall never our hate rescind.
The Fall of Richmond.
The tidings received in the Northern Metropolis.
(April, 1865.)
What mean these peals from every tower,
And crowds like seas that sway?
The cannon reply; they speak the heart
Of the People impassioned, and say--
A city in flags for a city in flames,
Richmond goes Babylon’s way--
_Sing and pray._
O weary years and woeful wars,
And armies in the grave;
But hearts unquelled at last deter
The helmed dilated Lucifer--
Honor to Grant the brave,
Whose three stars now like Orion’s rise
When wreck is on the wave--
_Bless his glaive._
Well that the faith we firmly kept,
And never our aim forswore
For the Terrors that trooped from each recess
When fainting we fought in the Wilderness,
And Hell made loud hurrah;
But God is in Heaven, and Grant in the Town,
And Right through might is Law--
_God’s way adore._
The Surrender at Appomattox.
(April, 1865.)
As billows upon billows roll,
On victory victory breaks;
Ere yet seven days from Richmond’s fall
And crowning triumph wakes
The loud joy-gun, whose thunders run
By sea-shore, streams, and lakes.
The hope and great event agree
In the sword that Grant received from Lee.
The warring eagles fold the wing,
But not in Cæsar’s sway;
Not Rome o’ercome by Roman arms we sing,
As on Pharsalia’s day,
But Treason thrown, though a giant grown,
And Freedom’s larger play.
All human tribes glad token see
In the close of the wars of Grant and Lee.
A Canticle:
Significant of the national exaltation of enthusiasm at
the close of the War.
O the precipice Titanic
Of the congregated Fall,
And the angle oceanic
Where the deepening thunders call--
And the Gorge so grim,
And the firmamental rim!
Multitudinously thronging
The waters all converge,
Then they sweep adown in sloping
Solidity of surge.
The Nation, in her impulse
Mysterious as the Tide,
In emotion like an ocean
Moves in power, not in pride;
And is deep in her devotion
As Humanity is wide.
Thou Lord of hosts victorious,
The confluence Thou hast twined;
By a wondrous way and glorious
A passage Thou dost find--
A passage Thou dost find:
Hosanna to the Lord of hosts,
The hosts of human kind.
Stable in its baselessness
When calm is in the air,
The Iris half in tracelessness
Hovers faintly fair.
Fitfully assailing it
A wind from heaven blows,
Shivering and paling it
To blankness of the snows;
While, incessant in renewal,
The Arch rekindled grows,
Till again the gem and jewel
Whirl in blinding overthrows--
Till, prevailing and transcending,
Lo, the Glory perfect there,
And the contest finds an ending,
For repose is in the air.
But the foamy Deep unsounded,
And the dim and dizzy ledge,
And the booming roar rebounded,
And the gull that skims the edge!
The Giant of the Pool
Heaves his forehead white as wool--
Toward the Iris every climbing
From the Cataracts that call--
Irremovable vast arras
Draping all the Wall.
The Generations pouring
From times of endless date,
In their going, in their flowing
Ever form the steadfast State;
And Humanity is growing
Toward the fullness of her fate.
Thou Lord of hosts victorious,
Fulfill the end designed;
By a wondrous way and glorious
A passage Thou dost find--
A passage Thou dost find:
Hosanna to the Lord of hosts,
The hosts of human kind.
The Martyr.
Indicative of the passion of the people on the 15th of
April, 1865.
Good Friday was the day
Of the prodigy and crime,
When they killed him in his pity,
When they killed him in his prime
Of clemency and calm--
When with yearning he was filled
To redeem the evil-willed,
And, though conqueror, be kind;
But they killed him in his kindness,
In their madness and their blindness,
And they killed him from behind.
There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand:
Beware the People weeping
When they bare the iron hand.
He lieth in his blood--
The father in his face;
They have killed him, the Forgiver--
The Avenger takes his place, [15]
The Avenger wisely stern,
Who in righteousness shall do
What the heavens call him to,
And the parricides remand;
For they killed him in his kindness,
In their madness and their blindness,
And his blood is on their hand.
There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand:
Beware the People weeping
When they bare the iron hand.
“The Coming Storm:”
A Picture by S.R. Gifford, and owned by E.B.
Included in the N.A. Exhibition, April, 1865.
All feeling hearts must feel for him
Who felt this picture. Presage dim--
Dim inklings from the shadowy sphere
Fixed him and fascinated here.
A demon-cloud like the mountain one
Burst on a spirit as mild
As this urned lake, the home of shades.
But Shakspeare’s pensive child
Never the lines had lightly scanned,
Steeped in fable, steeped in fate;
The Hamlet in his heart was ’ware,
Such hearts can antedate.
No utter surprise can come to him
Who reaches Shakspeare’s core;
That which we seek and shun is there--
Man’s final lore.
Rebel Color-bearers at Shiloh:[16]
A plea against the vindictive cry raised by civilians shortly
after the surrender at Appomattox.
The color-bearers facing death
White in the whirling sulphurous wreath,
Stand boldly out before the line
Right and left their glances go,
Proud of each other, glorying in their show;
Their battle-flags about them blow,
And fold them as in flame divine:
Such living robes are only seen
Round martyrs burning on the green--
And martyrs for the Wrong have been.
Perish their Cause! but mark the men--
Mark the planted statues, then
Draw trigger on them if you can.
The leader of a patriot-band
Even so could view rebels who so could stand;
And this when peril pressed him sore,
Left aidless in the shivered front of war--
Skulkers behind, defiant foes before,
And fighting with a broken brand.
The challenge in that courage rare--
Courage defenseless, proudly bare--
Never could tempt him; he could dare
Strike up the leveled rifle there.
Sunday at Shiloh, and the day
When Stonewall charged--McClellan’s crimson May,
And Chickamauga’s wave of death,
And of the Wilderness the cypress wreath--
All these have passed away.
The life in the veins of Treason lags,
Her daring color-bearers drop their flags,
And yield. _Now_ shall we fire?
Can poor spite be?
Shall nobleness in victory less aspire
Than in reverse? Spare Spleen her ire,
And think how Grant met Lee.
The Muster:[17]
Suggested by the Two Days’ Review at Washington
(May, 1865.)
The Abrahamic river--
Patriarch of floods,
Calls the roll of all his streams
And watery mutitudes:
Torrent cries to torrent,
The rapids hail the fall;
With shouts the inland freshets
Gather to the call.
The quotas of the Nation,
Like the water-shed of waves,
Muster into union--
Eastern warriors, Western braves.
Martial strains are mingling,
Though distant far the bands,
And the wheeling of the squadrons
Is like surf upon the sands.
The bladed guns are gleaming--
Drift in lengthened trim,
Files on files for hazy miles--
Nebulously dim.
O Milky Way of armies--
Star rising after star,
New banners of the Commonwealths,
And eagles of the War.
The Abrahamic river
To sea-wide fullness fed,
Pouring from the thaw-lands
By the God of floods is led:
His deep enforcing current
The streams of ocean own,
And Europe’s marge is evened
By rills from Kansas lone.
Aurora-Borealis.
Commemorative of the Dissolution of Armies at the Peace.
(May, 1865.)
What power disbands the Northern Lights
After their steely play?
The lonely watcher feels an awe
Of Nature’s sway,
As when appearing,
He marked their flashed uprearing
In the cold gloom--
Retreatings and advancings,
(Like dallyings of doom),
Transitions and enhancings,
And bloody ray.
The phantom-host has faded quite,
Splendor and Terror gone--
Portent or promise--and gives way
To pale, meek Dawn;
The coming, going,
Alike in wonder showing--
Alike the God,
Decreeing and commanding
The million blades that glowed,
The muster and disbanding--
Midnight and Morn.
The Released Rebel Prisoner.[18]
(June, 1865.)
Armies he’s seen--the herds of war,
But never such swarms of men
As now in the Nineveh of the North--
How mad the Rebellion then!
And yet but dimly he divines
The depth of that deceit,
And superstition of vast pride
Humbled to such defeat.
Seductive shone the Chiefs in arms--
His steel the nearest magnet drew;
Wreathed with its kind, the Gulf-weed drives--
’Tis Nature’s wrong they rue.
His face is hidden in his beard,
But his heart peers out at eye--
And such a heart! like mountain-pool
Where no man passes by.
He thinks of Hill--a brave soul gone;
And Ashby dead in pale disdain;
And Stuart with the Rupert-plume,
Whose blue eye never shall laugh again.
He hears the drum; he sees our boys
From his wasted fields return;
Ladies feast them on strawberries,
And even to kiss them yearn.
He marks them bronzed, in soldier-trim,
The rifle proudly borne;
They bear it for an heir-loom home,
And he--disarmed--jail-worn.
Home, home--his heart is full of it;
But home he never shall see,
Even should he stand upon the spot;
’Tis gone!--where his brothers be.
The cypress-moss from tree to tree
Hangs in his Southern land;
As weird, from thought to thought of his
Run memories hand in hand.
And so he lingers--lingers on
In the City of the Foe--
His cousins and his countrymen
Who see him listless go.