4
Thus in silence in dreams' projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way
through the hospitals,
The hurt and wounded I pacify with
soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night,
some are so young,
Some suffer so much, I recall the experience
sweet and sad,
(Many a soldier's loving arms about this
neck have cross'd and rested,
Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these
bearded lips.)
[SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE]
(Washington City, 1865)
Spirit whose work is done—spirit of
dreadful hours!
Ere departing fade from my eyes your
forests of bayonets;
Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts,
(yet onward ever unfaltering
pressing,)
Spirit of many a solemn day and many
a savage scene—electric spirit,
That with muttering voice through the
war now closed, like a tireless
phantom flitted,
Rousing the land with breath of flame,
while you beat and beat the drum,
Now as the sound of the drum, hollow
and harsh to the last, reverberates
round me,
As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return,
return from the battles,
As the muskets of the young men yet
lean over their shoulders,
As I look on the bayonets bristling over
their shoulders,
As those slanted bayonets, whole forests
of them appearing in the distance,
approach and pass on, returning
homeward,
Moving with steady motion, swaying to
and fro to the right and left,
Evenly lightly rising and falling while
the steps keep time;
Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one
day, but pale as death next day,
Touch my mouth ere you depart, press
my lips close,
Leave me your pulses of rage—bequeath
them to me—fill me with currents
convulsive,
Let them scorch and blister out of my
chants when you are gone,
Let them identify you to the future in
these songs.
[ASHES OF SOLDIERS]
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.
[PENSIVE ON HER DEAD GAZING]
Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the
Mother of All,
Desperate on the torn bodies, on the
forms covering the battle-fields
gazing,
(As the last gun ceased, but the scent
of the powder-smoke linger'd,)
As she call'd to her earth with mournful
voice while she stalk'd,
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 impalpable,
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 or South or North—my
young men's bodies absorb, and
their 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, centuries 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.
[CAMPS OF GREEN]
Not alone those camps of white, old comrades
of the wars,
When as order'd forward, after a long
march,
Footsore and weary, soon as the light
lessens 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 begin 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 rise up refresh'd, the night and sleep
pass'd over, and resume our journey,
Or proceed to battle.
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?)
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 moonlight, 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.)
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.