Not by the weary cares of state,
The endless tasks, which will not wait,
Which, often done in vain,
Must yet be done again:
Not in the dark, wild tide of war,
Which rose so high, and rolled so far,
Sweeping from sea to sea
In awful anarchy:—
Four fateful years of mortal strife,
Which slowly drained the nation's life,
(Yet, for each drop that ran
There sprang an armed man!)
Not then;—but when by measures meet,—
By victory, and by defeat,—
By courage, patience, skill,
The people's fixed "We will!"
Had pierced, had crushed rebellion dead,—
Without a hand, without a head:—
At last, when all was well,
He fell—O, how he fell!
The time,—the place,—the stealing shape,—
The coward shot,—the swift escape,—
The wife,—the widow's scream,—
It is a hideous dream!
A dream?—what means this pageant, then?
These multitudes of solemn men,
Who speak not when they meet,
But throng the silent street?
The flags half-mast, that late so high
Flaunted at each new victory?
(The stars no brightness shed,
But bloody looks the red!)
The black festoons that stretch for miles,
And turn the streets to funeral aisles?
(No house too poor to show
The nation's badge of woe!)
The cannon's sudden, sullen boom,—
The bells that toll of death and doom,—
The rolling of the drums,—
The dreadful car that comes?