A Dirge.
"There may be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily."
"A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted."
Deep, deep in the tender heart
Make a grave for the joys of the Past!
Let never a tear fall hot on their bier,
But hurry them in as fast
As we bury the Beautiful out of our sight,
Ere corruption and horror have saddened our light.
Deep, deep in the sinking heart
Make a grave for the dreams of the Past!
Let the shrill cries of pain still assail thee in vain,
Though they follow so wild and so fast:
Through the fibres and sinews, and hot, bloody dew
Let the sharp strokes fall piercing, unceasing, and true.
Call, call on the feverish brain
To bring aid to the gasping heart!
To sustain its quick throbs, to suppress its fierce sobs,
As it must with its idols part:
While the ruthless spade in the grave it has made
Hurries forever the beautiful Dead!
Call, call on the tortured soul
To stand close by the sinking heart,
While the nervous mesh of the writhing flesh,
Shuddering and shivering in every part,
Its strange anguish renews as the hot, bloody dews
Follow the track of the rude spade through.
Call, call on the gifted brain
To send on in the funeral train
Her fair children enwrought from the tissue of thought—
Though their wailing will all be in vain—
Yet shrouded in robes of funereal woe
Let them move on to monotones, solemn and slow!
Rouse, rouse the immortal soul
With its hopes and its visions so bright,
To send them in the train with the thoughts of the brain,
Though their vesture seemed woven of light,
To sigh, wail, and weep o'er the pulse-rhythmed sleep
Of the Dead in their living urn!
Heave, heave the weird sculptured stone;
Press it deep on the throbbing grave!
With a wildering moan leave the Buried alone
In their tomb in the quivering heart:
While it pours its wild blood in a hot lava flood
Round its beautiful sepulchred Dead.
But my God, they are not at rest!
Can they neither live nor die?
See, they writhe in their throbbing grave!
While the nervous mesh of the quivering flesh
Its strange anguish renews as the hot, bloody dews
Follow the track of my Beautiful back
As they rush into life again,
Bringing nought but a sense of pain!
We may bury deep the Past—
Vain is all our bitter task!
It is throbbing, living still, for beyond all power to kill,
It can never find a rest in a woman's stormful breast,
It can never, never sleep rocked by anguish wild and deep,
It can never quiet lie with shrill sobs for lullaby;
And since woman cannot part from the idols of her heart,
And as severed life is Hell for the souls that love too well,
Better far the tender form whose lorn life is only storm,
With the coffined dead should seek
To lie down in a dreamless sleep—
And find rest in the dust with the worm.
Dig a quiet, lowly grave
In the earth where willows wave!
Round the burning anguish deep wrap the cooling winding sheet,
Shroud the children of the brain, and the soul's high-visioned train:
Ah, o'er the snowy sleep let no pitying mortal weep,
For the weary seek repose with the worm!
Creeping pines and mosses grow
O'er the fragile form below!
Violets, bright-eyed pansies wave o'er the lowly, harmless grave;
Let the butterfly and bee all the summer flutter free,
O'er the flowers grown from a heart which no wrongs could ever part,
Nor torture e'er remove from the creatures of its love;
With the wild and feverish brain, and thought's bright but blighted train,
With strong heart, but anguished soul, and pain's weird and heavy dole—
Let the weary, tired form, whose lost life was only storm,
In the shroud's pure snow
Find release from woe,
Nor hope, nor joy, nor love it e'er again would know!
NEGRO TROOPS.
There was a time not long since when the serious consideration of a question like this would have met with little favor. We remember seeing, in this city of New York, one genial October day, not very many years ago, a small company of negro soldiers. They were marching in Canal street, not in Broadway, and seemed to fear molestation even there. The writer was a schoolboy then, cadet in a military school (one of the first established of those excellent institutions), and had, of course, a particular interest in all military matters. So he stopped to look upon these black soldiers—marching with all the more pride (as it seemed to him) because they marched under the floating folds of the stars and stripes. His boy's heart was stirred by the spectacle, and full of a big emotion; but the fashion of the times overpowered the generous impulse, and he treated the negro soldiers with contempt.
This was in the palmy days of the old régime. The stifling of that generous impulse was one of the glories of the old régime. Not a decade of years went by, and the writer stood again in the streets of New York city, and saw another sight of negro soldiers. It was, indeed, and in all respects, another sight. This time the black men marched in Broadway; this time they feared no molestation. It was a balmy day in spring, and God's sunshine glistened gladly from the bright bayonets of United States black soldiers. What a spectacle it was! There marched the retributive justice of the nation—'carrying the flag and keeping step to the music of the Union.' That march was a march of triumph, and its sublime watchword was: 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!'
What a marvellous change in public opinion! Now, negro companies are treated with respect, negro regiments are honored; because we honor the defenders of our national ensign, which is the representative and symbol of our national life. The men who joined so gallantly in the assault on Port Hudson; who fell so nobly at Milliken's Bend, in repelling the attack of men whose blackness was not, like theirs, of the outside skin, but of a blacker, deeper dye, the blackness of treason in their inner hearts; the men whose blood drenched the sands of Morris Island, and made South Carolina more a sacred soil than it had ever been before, because it was blood poured out in defence of the nation's honor, and to wash out the stain of Carolina's dishonor; these men cannot be contemned now. They have shown themselves noble men. They have made for themselves a place in American history, along with their fathers at New Orleans, and their grandfathers under Washington. And the rebel epitaph of the brave Colonel Shaw, who led them unflinchingly against the iron hail of Wagner, is no reproach, but a badge of honor: 'We have buried him under his niggers.'
Since that memorable assault, another State has witnessed the patriotic gallantry of these despised 'niggers;' and in the first Virginia campaign of Lieutenant-General Grant, negroes have borne an honorable part. There is a division of them attached to the old ninth corps, under Burnside, in the present organization of the Army of the Potomac. While that noble army was fighting the battles of the Wilderness, this division was holding the fords of the Rapid Ann. When Grant swung his base away from the river, after the disaster to his right wing, and moved upon Lee's flank, the ninth corps, with its negro division, held an honorable post in the marching column; and at Spottsylvania Court House the correspondents tell us how, with the war cry of Fort Pillow in their mouths, these 'niggers' rushed valiantly to the assault, and elicited the highest praise for their steadiness and courage. Not less honorable is the record of the negro troops attached to the coöperating Army of the Peninsula. The three extracts from official despatches, which follow, show what the record is.
May 5th, General Butler telegraphs to Secretary Stanton: 'We have seized Wilson's Wharf Landing. A brigade of Wild's colored troops are there. At Powhatan Landing two regiments of the same brigade have landed.'