Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War Part 8

_The tribes swarm up to war As in ages long ago, Ere the palm of promise leaved And the lily of Christ did blow._

Their mounted pickets for miles are spied Dotting the lowland plain, The nearer ones in their veteran-rags-- Loutish they loll in lazy disdain.

But ours in perilous places bide With rifles ready and eyes that strain Deep through the dim suspected wood Where the Rapidan rolls amain.

_The Indian has pa.s.sed away, But creeping comes another-- Deadlier far. Picket, Take heed--take heed of thy brother!_

From a wood-hung height, an outpost lone, Crowned with a woodman's fort, The sentinel looks on a land of dole, Like Paran, all amort.

Black chimneys, gigantic in moor-like wastes, The scowl of the clouded sky retort; The hearth is a houseless stone again-- Ah! where shall the people be sought?

_Since the venom such blastment deals, The south should have paused, and thrice, Ere with heat of her hate she hatched The egg with the c.o.c.katrice._

A path down the mountain winds to the glade Where the dead of the Moonlight Fight lie low; A hand reaches out of the thin-laid mould As begging help which none can bestow.

But the field-mouse small and busy ant Heap their hillocks, to hide if they may the woe: By the bubbling spring lies the rusted canteen, And the drum which the drummer-boy dying let go.

_Dust to dust, and blood for blood-- Pa.s.sion and pangs! Has Time Gone back? or is this the Age Of the world's great Prime?_

The wagon mired and cannon dragged Have trenched their scar; the plain Tramped like the cindery beach of the d.a.m.ned-- A site for the city of Cain.

And stumps of forests for dreary leagues Like a ma.s.sacre show. The armies have lain By fires where gums and balms did burn, And the seeds of Summer's reign.

_Where are the birds and boys?

Who shall go chestnutting when October returns? The nuts-- O, long ere they grow again._

They snug their huts with the chapel-pews, In court-houses stable their steeds-- Kindle their fires with indentures and bonds, And old Lord Fairfax's parchment deeds; And Virginian gentlemen's libraries old-- Books which only the scholar heeds-- Are flung to his kennel. It is ravage and range, And gardens are left to weeds.

_Turned adrift into war Man runs wild on the plain, Like the jennets let loose On the Pampas--zebras again._

Like the Pleiads dim, see the tents through the storm-- Aloft by the hill-side hamlet's graves, On a head-stone used for a hearth-stone there The water is bubbling for punch for our braves.

What if the night be drear, and the blast Ghostly shrieks? their rollicking staves Make frolic the heart; beating time with their swords, What care they if Winter raves?

_Is life but a dream? and so, In the dream do men laugh aloud?

So strange seems mirth in a camp, So like a white tent to a shroud._

II

The May-weed springs; and comes a Man And mounts our Signal Hill; A quiet Man, and plain in garb-- Briefly he looks his fill, Then drops his gray eye on the ground, Like a loaded mortar he is still: Meekness and grimness meet in him-- The silent General.

_Were men but strong and wise, Honest as Grant, and calm, War would be left to the red and black ants, And the happy world disarm._

That eve a stir was in the camps, Forerunning quiet soon to come Among the streets of beechen huts No more to know the drum.

The weed shall choke the lowly door, And foxes peer within the gloom, Till scared perchange by Mosby's prowling men, Who ride in the rear of doom.

_Far West, and farther South, Wherever the sword has been, Deserted camps are met, And desert graves are seen._

The livelong night they ford the flood; With guns held high they silent press, Till shimmers the gra.s.s in their bayonets' sheen-- On Morning's banks their ranks they dress; Then by the forests lightly wind, Whose waving boughs the pennons seem to bless, Borne by the cavalry scouting on-- Sounding the Wilderness.

_Like shoals of fish in spring That visit Crusoe's isle, The host in the lonesome place-- The hundred thousand file._

The foe that held his guarded hills Must speed to woods afar; For the scheme that was nursed by the Culpepper hearth With the slowly-smoked cigar-- The scheme that smouldered through winter long Now bursts into act--into waw-- The resolute scheme of a heart as calm As the Cyclone's core.

_The fight for the city is fought In Nature's old domain; Man goes out to the wilds, And Orpheus' charm is vain._

In glades they meet skull after skull Where pine-cones lay--the rusted gun, Green shoes full of bones, the mouldering coat And cuddled-up skeleton; And scores of such. Some start as in dreams, And comrades lost bemoan: By the edge of those wilds Stonewall had charged-- But the Year and the Man were gone.

_At the height of their madness The night winds pause, Recollecting themselves; But no lull in these wars._

A gleam!--a volley! And who shall go Storming the swarmers in jungles dread?

No cannon-ball answers, no proxies are sent-- They rush in the shrapnel's stead.

Plume and sash are vanities now-- Let them deck the pall of the dead; They go where the shade is, perhaps into Hades, Where the brave of all times have led.

_There's a dust of hurrying feet, Bitten lips and bated breath, And drums that challenge to the grave, And faces fixed, forefeeling death._

What husky huzzahs in the hazy groves-- What flying encounters fell; Pursuer and pursued like ghosts disappear In gloomed shade--their end who shall tell?

The crippled, a ragged-barked stick for a crutch, Limp to some elfin dell-- Hobble from the sight of dead faces--white As pebbles in a well.

_Few burial rites shall be; No priest with book and band Shall come to the secret place Of the corpse in the foeman's land._

Watch and fast, march and fight--clutch your gun?

Day-fights and night-fights; sore is the strees; Look, through the pines what line comes on?

Longstreet slants through the hauntedness?

'Tis charge for charge, and shout for yell: Such battles on battles oppress-- But Heaven lent strength, the Right strove well, And emerged from the Wilderness.

_Emerged, for the way was won; But the Pillar of Smoke that led Was brand-like with ghosts that went up Ashy and red._

None can narrate that strife in the pines, A seal is on it--Sabaean lore!

Obscure as the wood, the entangled rhyme But hints at the maze of war-- Vivid glimpses or livid through peopled gloom, And fires which creep and char-- A riddle of death, of which the slain Sole solvers are.

_Long they withhold the roll Of the shroudless dead. It is right; Not yet can we bear the flare Of the funeral light._

On the Photograph of a Corps Commander.

Ay, man is manly. Here you see The warrior-carriage of the head, And brave dilation of the frame; And lighting all, the soul that led In Spottsylvania's charge to victory, Which justifies his fame.

A cheering picture. It is good To look upon a Chief like this, In whom the spirit moulds the form.

Here favoring Nature, oft remiss, With eagle mien expressive has endued A man to kindle strains that warm.

Trace back his lineage, and his sires, Yeoman or n.o.ble, you shall find Enrolled with men of Agincourt, Heroes who shared great Harry's mind.

Down to us come the knightly Norman fires, And front the Templars bore.

Nothing can lift the heart of man Like manhood in a fellow-man.

The thought of heaven's great King afar But humbles us--too weak to scan; But manly greatness men can span, And feel the bonds that draw.

The Swamp Angel.[10]