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ASHES OF SOLDIERS.

Again a verse for sake of you,
You soldiers in the ranks—you Volunteers,
Who bravely fighting silent fell.
To fill unmention'd graves.



 

ASHES OF SOLDIERS.


1  ASHES of soldiers!
As I muse, retrospective, murmuring a chant in thought,
Lo! The war resumes—again to my sense your shapes,
And again the advance of the armies.

2  Noiseless as mists and vapors,
From their graves in the trenches ascending,
From their cemeteries all through Virginia and Ten-
         nessee,
From every point of the compass, out of the countless
         unnamed graves,
In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos
         or threes, or single ones, they come,
And silently gather round me.

3  Now sound no note, O trumpeters,
Not at the head of my cavalry, parading on spirited
         horses,
With sabres drawn and glist'ning, and carbines by
         their thighs, (ah my brave horsemen!

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My handsome, tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy
         and pride,
With all the perils, were yours!)

4  Nor you drummers—neither at reveillé 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.

5  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.

6  Faces so pale, with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather
         closer yet;
Draw close, but speak not.

7  Phantoms of countless lost,
Invisible to the rest henceforth become my compan-
         ions!
Follow me ever—desert me not while I live.

8  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.

9  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 foetor
         arising.

10  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.

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11  Perfume all! make all wholesome!
Make these ashes to nourish and blossom,
O love! O chant! solve all, fructify all with the last
         chemistry.

12  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.



 

IN MIDNIGHT SLEEP.



 

1

IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded—(of that
         indescribable look,)
Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide,
I dream, I dream, I dream.


 

2

Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains;
Of skies, so beauteous after a storm—and at night the
         moon so unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the
         trenches and gather the heaps,
I dream, I dream, I dream.


 

3

Long, long have they pass'd—faces and trenches and
         fields;
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous com-
         posure—or away from the fallen,
Onward I sped at the time—But now of their forms at
         night,
I dream, I dream, I dream.

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CAMPS OF GREEN.


1  NOT alone those camps of white, O soldiers,
When, as order'd forward, after a long march,
Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessen'd, we
         halt for the night;
Some of us so fatigued, carrying the gun and knapsack,
         dropping asleep in our tracks;
Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up
          began to sparkle,
Outposts of pickets posted, surrounding, alert through
         the dark,
And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety;
Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly
         beating the drums,
We rose up refresh'd, the night and sleep pass'd over,
         and resumed our journey,
Or proceed to battle.

2  Lo! the camps of the tents of green,
Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of
         war keep filling,
With a mystic army, (is it too order'd forward? is it
         too only halting awhile,
Till night and sleep pass over?)

3  Now in those camps of green—in their tents dotting
         the world;
In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them—in
         the old and young,
Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moon-
         light, content and silent there at last,
Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of
         all,
Of the corps and generals all, and the President over the
         corps and generals all,
And of each of us O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we
         fought,
(There without hatred we all, all meet.)

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4  For presently, O soldiers, we too camp in our place in
         the bivouac-camps of green;
But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the
         countersign,
Nor drummer to beat the morning drum.



 

TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN.

DID you ask dulcet rhymes from me?
Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing
         rhymes?
Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?
Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to
         understand—nor am I now;
(I have been born of the same as the war was born;
The drum-corps' harsh rattle is to me sweet music—I
         love well the martial dirge,
With slow wail and convulsive throb, leading the offi-
         cer's funeral;)
—What to such as you, anyhow, such a poet as I?—
         therefore leave my works,
And go lull yourself with what you can understand—
         and with piano-tunes;
For I lull nobody—and you will never understand me.



 

PENSIVE ON HER DEAD GAZING, I HEARD THE MOTHER OF ALL.

PENSIVE, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering
         the battle-fields gazing;
(As the last gun ceased—but the scent of the poweder-
         smoke linger'd;)
As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she
         stalk'd:

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Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried—I charge you,
         lose not my sons! lose not an atom;
And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear
         blood;
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above
         lightly
And all you essences of soil and growth—and you, my
         rivers' depths;
And you, mountain sides—and the woods where my
         dear children's blood, trickling, redden'd;
And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all
         future trees,
My dead absorb—my young men's bodies
         absorb—and their precious, precious, precious
         blood;
Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again
         give me, many a year hence,
In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centu-
         ries hence;
In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my
         darlings—give my immortal heroes;
Exhale me them centuries hence—breathe me their
         breath—let not an atom be lost;
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an
         aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial sweet death, years, centuries
         hence.
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