Ashes of soldiers South or North,
As I muse retrospective murmuring a
chant in thought,
The war resumes, again to my sense
your shapes,
And again the advance of the armies.
Noiseless as mists and vapors,
From their graves in the trenches
ascending,
From cemeteries all through Virginia
and Tennessee,
From every point of the compass out of
the countless graves,
In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or
squads of twos or threes or single
ones they come,
And silently gather round me.
Now sound no note O trumpeters,
Not at the head of my cavalry parading
on spirited horses,
With sabres drawn and glistening, and
carbines by their thighs, (ah my
brave horsemen!
My handsome tan-faced horsemen! what
life, what joy and pride,
With all the perils were yours.)
Nor you drummers, neither at reveille
at dawn,
Nor the long roll alarming the camp,
nor even the muffled beat for a
burial,
Nothing from you this time O drummers
bearing my warlike drums.
But aside from these and the marts of
wealth and the crowded promenade,
Admitting around me comrades close
unseen by the rest and voiceless,
The slain elate and alive again, the dust
and debris alive,
I chant this chant of my silent soul in
the name of all dead soldiers.
Faces so pale with wondrous eyes, very
dear, gather closer yet,
Draw close, but speak not.
Phantoms of countless lost,
Invisible to the rest henceforth become
my companions,
Follow me ever--desert me not while I
live.
Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the
living--sweet are the musical
voices sounding,
But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with
their silent eyes.
Dearest comrades, all is over and long
gone,
But love is not over--and what love, O
comrades!
Perfume from battle-fields rising, up
from the fœtor arising.
Perfume therefore my chant, O love,
immortal love,
Give me to bathe the memories of all
dead soldiers,
Shroud them, embalm them, cover them
all over with tender pride.
Perfume all--make all wholesome,
Make these ashes to nourish and
blossom,
O love, solve all, fructify all with the
last chemistry.
Give me exhaustless, make me a
fountain,
That I exhale love from me wherever
I go like a moist perennial dew,
For the ashes of all dead soldiers South
or North.