Mourn, wail, O ye people! and spread wide the pall,
Whose deep sable fringe down the hill-sides shall fall!
Your brethren’s warm blood cries aloud from the ground,
That hosts, like Philistia’s, in triumph surround.
The lovely, the pleasant have perished! Alas!
Where they fell may there hence be no dew on the grass!
Let a monument there, towards the heavens rear its head,
From a base, that shall cover the spot where they bled!
Ah, War-spirit! War-spirit, deep was the gloom,
Though heaven was unclouded, and earth all in bloom,
When thou, at the onset, that young summer’s day,
Didst strike so much valor to darkness away!
And yet, by that thunder, the land is awake:
’T was the crack of her yoke when beginning to break!
And out of that gloom is her glory to spread;
Her living be franchised, immortal her dead.
For up from that summit an eagle shall rise,
To breast the thick clouds, till he sails the blue skies;
And drop, while he bathes at the fountain of light,
A plume from his pinion their story to write.
It shall fall where they fell, on the still purple sward,
Full and warm with the sunbeams their deeds to record;
And move o’er the scroll in the hand of the free,
While the wing where it grew spans the earth and the sea.
[THE INNER SELF.]
While others lie composed in sleep,
Close wrapped in shade and silence deep,
And starry hosts and angels keep
Their vigils o’er the night,
I have a curious work to do,
A secret door to venture through,
A wondrous being then to view;
If I can stand the sight.