The sceptred giants come and go
And shake their shadowy crowns and say: ‘We always feared it would be so!’”
There is hardly a stanza in the poem that does not contain some striking image. It moves on in the mournful cadence of a miserere:—
“The Sisterhood that was so sweet,
The Starry System sphered complete,
Which the mazed Orient used to greet,
The Four and Thirty fallen Stars glimmer and glitter at her feet.”
He published, January 1, 1863, as a carrier’s address in the Louisville Journal, “The Old Sergeant,” which Piatt believed to have been “the transcript of a real history, none of the names in it being fictitious, and the story being reported as exactly as possible from the lips of a Federal assistant surgeon named Austin, with whom Willson was acquainted at New Albany.” The poem appeared anonymously, and for some reason, which was never explained, Willson seemed reluctant at first to admit its authorship. It attracted wide attention. Gilmore relates that early in 1863, in the office of the Atlantic Monthly, he met Dr. Holmes, who held in his hand a copy of the Louisville Journal, containing “The Old Sergeant.” “Read that,” said he, “and tell me if it’s not the finest thing since the war began. Sit down and read it here; you might lose it if I let you take it away.” The ballad is found in “The Old Sergeant and Other Poems” (1867). It is a vivid narrative of sustained power and interest, deriving strength from the earnestness of the recital and the simple language, sometimes descending to army slang, of the soldier. The poem is historically accurate and is a fine celebration of the battle of Shiloh:
“There was where Lew Wallace showed them he was of the canny kin,
There was where old Nelson thundered, and where Rousseau waded in;