Dreams and Days: Poems Part 17

Mortally wounded, he'd torn off his knapsack; and then at the end he prayed-- Easy to see, by his hands that were clasped; and the dull, dead fingers yet held This little letter--his wife's--from the knapsack.

A pity those woods were sh.e.l.led!"

Silent the orderly, watching with tears in his eyes as his officer scanned Four short pages of writing. "What's this, about 'Marthy Virginia's hand'?"

Swift from his honeymoon he, the dead soldier, had gone from his bride to the strife; Never they met again, but she had written him, telling of that new life, Born in the daughter, that bound her still closer and closer to him as his wife.

Laying her baby's hand down on the letter, around it she traced a rude line; "If you would kiss the baby," she wrote, "you must kiss this outline of mine."

There was the shape of the hand on the page, with the small, chubby fingers outspread.

"Marthy Virginia's hand, for her pa,"--so the words on the little palm said.

Never a wink slept the colonel that night, for the vengeance so blindly fulfilled; Never again woke the old battle-glow when the bullets their death-note shrilled.

Long ago ended the struggle, in union of brotherhood happily stilled; Yet from that field of Antietam, in warning and token of love's command, See! there is lifted the hand of a baby--Marthy Virginia's hand!

GETTYSBURG: A BATTLE ODE

I

Victors, living, with laureled brow, And you that sleep beneath the sward!

Your song was poured from cannon throats: It rang in deep-tongued bugle-notes: Your triumph came; you won your crown, The grandeur of a world's renown.

But, in our later lays, Full freighted with your praise, Fair memory harbors those whose lives, laid down In gallant faith and generous heat, Gained only sharp defeat.

All are at peace, who once so fiercely warred: Brother and brother, now, we chant a common chord.

II

For, if we say G.o.d wills, Shall we then idly deny Him Care of each host in the fight?

His thunder was here in the hills When the guns were loud in July; And the flash of the musketry's light Was sped by a ray from G.o.d's eye.

In its good and its evil the scheme Was framed with omnipotent hand, Though the battle of men was a dream That they could but half understand.

Can the purpose of G.o.d pa.s.s by him?

Nay; it was sure, and was wrought Under inscrutable powers: Bravely the two armies fought And left the land, that was greater than they, still theirs and ours!

III

Lucid, pure, and calm and blameless Dawned on Gettysburg the day That should make the spot, once fameless, Known to nations far away.

Birds were caroling, and farmers Gladdened o'er their garnered hay, When the clank of gathering armors Broke the morning's peaceful sway; And the living lines of foemen Drawn o'er pasture, brook, and hill, Formed in figures weird of omen That should work with mystic will Measures of a direful magic-- Shattering, maiming--and should fill Glades and gorges with a tragic Madness of desire to kill.

Skirmishers flung lightly forward Moved like scythemen skilled to sweep Westward o'er the field and nor'ward, Death's first harvest there to reap.

You would say the soft, white smoke-puffs Were but languid clouds asleep, Here on meadows, there on oak-bluffs, Fallen foam of Heaven's blue deep.

Yet that blossom-white outbreaking Smoke wove soon a martyr's shroud.

Reynolds fell, with soul unquaking, Ardent-eyed and open-browed: n.o.ble men in humbler raiment Fell where shot their graves had plowed, Dying not for paltry payment: Proud of home, of honor proud.

IV

Mute Seminary there, Filled once with resonant hymn and prayer, How your meek walls and windows shuddered then!

Though Doubleday stemmed the flood, McPherson's Wood and Willoughby's Run Saw ere the set of sun The light of the gospel of blood.

And, on the morrow again, Loud the unholy psalm of battle Burst from the tortured Devil's Den, In cries of men and musketry rattle Mixed with the helpless bellow of cattle Torn by artillery, down in the glen; While, hurtling through the branches Of the orchard by the road, Where Sickles and Birney were walled with steel, Shot fiery avalanches That shivered hope and made the st.u.r.diest reel.

Yet peach-bloom bright as April saw Blushed there anew, in blood that flowed O'er faces white with death-dealt awe; And ruddy flowers of warfare grew, Though withering winds as of the desert blew, Far at the right while Ewell and Early, Plunging at Sloc.u.m and Wadsworth and Greene, Thundered in onslaught consummate and surly; Till trembling nightfall crept between And whispered of rest from the heat of the whelming strife.

But unto those forsaken of life What has the night to say?

Silent beneath the moony sky, Crushed in a costly dew they lie: Deaf to plaint or paean, they:-- Freed from Earth's dull tyranny.

V

Wordless the night-wind, funereal plumes of the tree-tops swaying-- Writhing and nodding anon at the beck of the unseen breeze!

Yet its voice ever a murmur resumes, as of mult.i.tudes praying: Liturgies lost in a moan like the mourning of far-away seas.

May then those spirits, set free, a celestial council obeying, Move in this rustling whisper here thro' the dark, shaken trees?-- Souls that are voices alone to us, now, yet linger, returning Thrilled with a sweet reconcilement and fervid with speechless desire?

Sundered in warfare, immortal they meet now with wonder and yearning, Dwelling together united, a rapt, invisible choir: Hearken! They wail for the living, whose pa.s.sion of battle, yet burning, Sears and enfolds them in coils, and consumes, like a serpent of fire!

VI

Men of New Hampshire, Pennsylvanians, Maine men, firm as the rock's rough ledge!

Swift Mississippians, lithe Carolinians Bursting over the battle's edge!

Bold Indiana men; gallant Virginians; Jersey and Georgia legions clashing;-- Pick of Connecticut; quick Vermonters; Louisianians, madly dashing;-- And, swooping still to fresh encounters, New-York myriads, whirlwind-led!-- All your furious forces, meeting, Torn, entangled, and shifting place, Blend like wings of eagles beating Airy abysses, in angry embrace.

Here in the midmost struggle combining-- Flags immingled and weapons crossed-- Still in union your States troop shining: Never a star from the l.u.s.tre is lost!

VII

Once more the sun deploys his rays: Third in the trilogy of battle-days The awful Friday comes: A day of dread, That should have moved with slow, averted head And m.u.f.fled feet, Knowing what streams of pure blood shed, What broken hearts and wounded lives must meet Its pitiless tread.

At dawn, like monster mastiffs baying, Federal cannon, with a din affraying, Roused the old Stonewall brigade, That, eagerly and undismayed, Charged amain, to be repelled After four hours' bitter fighting, Forth and back, with bayonets biting; Where in after years, the wood-- Flayed and bullet-riddled--stood A presence ghostly, grim and stark, With trees all withered, wasted, gray, The place of combat night and day Like marshaled skeletons to mark.

Anon, a lull: the troops are spelled.

No sound of guns or drums Disturbs the air.

Only the insect-chorus faintly hums, Chirping around the patient, sleepless dead Scattered, or fallen in heaps all wildly spread; Forgotten fragments left in hurried flight; Forms that, a few hours since, were human creatures, Now blasted of their features, Or stamped with blank despair; Or with dumb faces smiling as for gladness, Though stricken by utter blight Of motionless, inert, and hopeless sadness.

Fear you the naked horrors of a war?

Then cherish peace, and take up arms no more.

For, if you fight, you must Behold your brothers' dust Unpityingly ground down And mixed with blood and powder, To write the annals of renown That make a nation prouder!

VIII

All is quiet till one o'clock; Then the hundred and fifty guns, Metal loaded with metal in tons, Ma.s.sed by Lee, send out their shock.

And, with a movement magnificent, Pickett, the golden-haired leader, Thousands and thousands flings onward, as if he sent Merely a meek interceder.

Steadily sure his division advances, Gay as the light on its weapons that dances.

Agonized screams of the sh.e.l.l The doom that it carries foretell: Rifle-b.a.l.l.s whistle, like sea-birds singing; Limbs are severed, and souls set winging; Yet Pickett's warriors never waver.

Show me in all the world anything braver Than the bold sweep of his fearless battalions, Three half-miles over ground unsheltered Up to the cannon, where regiments weltered p.r.o.ne in the batteries' blast that raked Swaths of men and, flame-tongued, drank Their blood with eager thirst unslaked.

Armistead, Kemper, and Pettigrew Rush on the Union men, rank against rank, Planting their battle-flags high on the crest.

Pause not the soldiers, nor dream they of rest, Till they fall with their enemy's guns at the breast And the shriek in their ears of the wounded artillery stallions.

So Pickett charged, a man indued With knightly power to lead a mult.i.tude And bring to fame the scarred surviving few.

IX

In vain the mighty endeavor; In vain the immortal valor; In vain the insurgent life outpoured!