Soldiers of the light

by Helen Gray Cone

IV

But the Left lay still, as enchanted:

Two huge armies outstretched, and between them the undulant valley

Basking broad, as asleep; only now and again through the quiet

Ripped the skirmishers’ rifles, a crackle increasing, then ceasing;

Now and again from the Right came the rolling rumors of battle

Echoing far, but disturbed not the dream of the armies enchanted:

Ceased at the last all sound, and the magical slumber was deepened.

So the bright hot day drew on to the noontide, and passed it.

Scarce had the old-fashioned clocks, in the farmhouses hushed, apprehensive,—

Equably telling the tale of the fire-wingèd minutes that fleeted

Bearing the death of men, as in days of peace, when the minutes

Bore but the blessing of toil, and a sleep with its face to the morrow,

—Scarce had the clocks struck One, when the deep-toned boom of the cannon,—

Hark, it was twice!—on the ridge that was held by the Southron, gave signal:

Boom, boom, boom after boom to the right, to the left, in the centre;

Cloud, cloud, cloud after cloud, white smoke-clouds that sprang out and hung there,

Massing, concealing, yet severed again and again by the flame-gush.

Now from the heights of the Union the batteries thundered their answer,

Boom, boom, boom after boom, from the right and the left and the centre,

Surf on a winter-bound coast, a tempestuous roaring incessant.

Piercingly rose as a cry, on that ground of vast sound elemental,

Scream of the travailing shells as they burst o’er the cloud-covered valley.

Trembled the solid earth, as she thrills in the throes of the earthquake;

Prickled the sulphurous air with the demon-breath of the powder;

Fainted the hearts of men at the endless unbearable clamor;

Filled were the heaven and the earth with the clang of that duel of iron:

Such they beheld not before, and heard not,—a combat of giants!

What did it mean on the earth? Stark terror and blood and confusion;

Shriek of the battery-horses, and hell-blaze of caissons exploding;

Reel of the torn cannoneer as he suddenly drops by his cannon,

Spring of the quick volunteer to snatch from his dead hand the rammer;

Orderlies galloping past, and a rumor of somewhat a-brewing:

Crouching of soldiers in gray, at the rear, in the underwoods’ flicker,—

Charge? we shall charge by and by? then a pipe of Virginia tobacco!

Over their heads as they lie, by the trunks of the fallen trees pillowed,

Jesting and resting an hour, come showering the boughs of the saplings.

Crouching of soldiers in blue, at the front, by the walls and the fences,

Waiting a charge—will they charge? and the brown fingers lock on the musket;

Sharply a rifle-gun bolt rips up the ground underneath him.

There in the field on the slope is a bellow of suffering cattle,

Out by the farmgate yonder, a tangle and mangle of horses;

Shells through the farmhouse roof, where the green moss grew on the shingles;

Shattered the apple-tree now, where the robin would sing at the sunset;

Shall there be song again, in a world given over to devils?

Shattered the stones of the dead, and about them the shapes of the dying;

Boom, boom, boom after boom to the right, to the left, in the centre,

Endless—will it be endless? and how shall the spirit endure it?

What did it mean in the heaven? Ah surely, black lips of the cannon,

Surely you spake in your wrath, and the soul of the world understood you!

Else it were horror indeed, and the blind brute rage of the jungle,

Earth returning to slime, and the hissing and tearing of dragons!

Guns of the Gettysburg heights, ye spake, in your awful contending,

Words ye spake through the cloud, with august oracular voices,

Mighty reverberant watchwords of Titan-forces in conflict:

Crying, “The feuds of States!” and replying, “The peace of a Nation!”

Crying, “The sundered stars!” and replying, “The heavens in their clusters

Led in the lines of law, and linked in their differing glory

Star unto star to the end, until God folds them up as a vesture!”

Crying, “The old-time pride, and the chivalrous grace and the splendor,

Feudal rule of the Few, and a serfdom meet for the Many!”

Thundering out of the cloud, as the Voice on the summit of Sinai,

“Nay! But the larger Hope, and the limitless future of Manhood!”

These were the words that ye uttered, O hot black lips of the cannon,

Catching them up from the lips of the orators fallen on silence,

Voices of lion-like men, in senates no longer resounding;

Now the debate was yours: and above it, the Arbiter waited!