Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War | Page 8

half ablaze,
Passed on and thundered yet;

While foundering, gloomed in grimy flame,
The Ram
Manassas--hark the yell!--
Plunged, and was gone; in joy or fright,

The River gave a startled swell.
They fought through lurid dark till dawn;
The war-smoke rolled away

With clouds of night, and showed the fleet
In scarred yet firm array,

Above the forts, above the drift
Of wrecks which strife had made;

And Farragut sailed up to the town
And anchored--sheathed the
blade.
The moody broadsides, brooding deep,
Hold the lewd mob at bay,

While o'er the armed decks' solemn aisles
The meek church-pennons
play;
By shotted guns the sailors stand,
With foreheads bound or
bare;
The captains and the conquering crews
Humble their pride in
prayer.
They pray; and after victory, prayer
Is meet for men who mourn their
slain;
The living shall unmoor and sail,
But Death's dark anchor
secret deeps detain.
Yet glory slants her shaft of rays
Far through
the undisturbed abyss;
There must be other, nobler worlds for them

Who nobly yield their lives in this.
Malvern Hill.
(July, 1862.)
Ye elms that wave on Malvern Hill
In prime of morn and May,

Recall ye how McClellan's men
Here stood at bay?
While deep within yon forest dim
Our rigid
comrades lay--
Some with the cartridge in their mouth,
Others with
fixed arms lifted South--
Invoking so
The cypress glades? Ah wilds of woe!

The spires of Richmond, late beheld
Through rifts in musket-haze,

Were closed from view in clouds of dust
On leaf-walled ways,
Where streamed our wagons in caravan;
And
the Seven Nights and Days
Of march and fast, retreat and fight,

Pinched our grimed faces to ghastly plight--
Does the elm wood
Recall the haggard beards of blood?
The battle-smoked flag, with stars eclipsed,
We followed (it never
fell!)--
In silence husbanded our strength--
Received their yell;
Till on this slope we patient turned
With
cannon ordered well;
Reverse we proved was not defeat;
But ah, the
sod what thousands meet!--
Does Malvern Wood
Bethink itself, and muse and brood?
_We elms of Malvern Hill
Remember every thing;
But sap the twig
will fill:
Wag the world how it will,
Leaves must be green in
Spring._
The Victor of Antietam.[5]
(1862.)
When tempest winnowed grain from bran;
And men were looking for
a man,
Authority called you to the van,
McClellan:
Along the line the plaudit ran,
As later when Antietam's
cheers began.
Through storm-cloud and eclipse must move
Each Cause and Man,
dear to the stars and Jove;
Nor always can the wisest tell
Deferred
fulfillment from the hopeless knell--
The struggler from the
floundering ne'er-do-well.
A pall-cloth on the Seven Days fell,
Mcclellan--
Unprosperously heroical!
Who could Antietam's wreath

foretell?
Authority called you; then, in mist
And loom of jeopardy--dismissed.

But staring peril soon appalled;
You, the Discarded, she recalled--

Recalled you, nor endured delay;
And forth you rode upon a
blasted way,
Arrayed Pope's rout, and routed Lee's array,
McClellan:
Your tent was choked with captured flags that day,
McClellan.
Antietam was a telling fray.
Recalled you; and she heard your drum
Advancing through the
glastly gloom.
You manned the wall, you propped the Dome,
You
stormed the powerful stormer home,
McClellan:
Antietam's cannon long shall boom.
At Alexandria, left alone,
McClellan--
Your veterans sent from you, and thrown
To fields and
fortunes all unknown--
What thoughts were yours, revealed to none,

While faithful still you labored on--
Hearing the far Manassas gun!
McClellan,
Only Antietam could atone.
You fought in the front (an evil day,
McClellan)--
The fore-front of the first assay;
The Cause went
sounding, groped its way;
The leadsmen quarrelled in the bay;

Quills thwarted swords; divided sway;
The rebel flushed in his lusty
May:
You did your best, as in you lay,
McClellan.
Antietam's sun-burst sheds a ray.
Your medalled soldiers love you well,

McClellan:
Name your name, their true hearts swell;
With you they
shook dread Stonewall's spell,[6]
With you they braved the blended
yell
Of rebel and maligner fell;
With you in shame or fame they
dwell,
McClellan:
Antietam-braves a brave can tell.
And when your comrades (now so few,
McClellan--
Such ravage in deep files they rue)
Meet round the
board, and sadly view
The empty places; tribute due
They render to
the dead--and you!
Absent and silent o'er the blue;
The one-armed
lift the wine to _you_,
McClellan,
And great Antietam's cheers renew.
Battle of Stone River, Tennessee.
A View from Oxford Cloisters.

(January, 1863.)
With Tewksbury and Barnet heath
In days to come the field shall
blend,
The story dim and date obscure;
In legend all shall end.

Even now, involved in forest shade
A Druid-dream the strife appears,

The fray of yesterday assumes
The haziness of years.
In North and South still beats the vein
Of Yorkist and Lancastrian.
Our rival Roses warred for Sway--
For Sway, but named the name of
Right;
And Passion, scorning pain and death,
Lent sacred fervor to
the fight.
Each lifted up a broidered cross,
While crossing blades
profaned the sign;
Monks blessed the fraticidal lance,
And sisters
scarfs could twine.
Do North and South the sin retain
Of Yorkist and Lancastrian?
But Rosecrans in the cedarn glade,
And, deep in denser cypress
gloom,
Dark Breckenridge, shall fade away

Or thinly loom.
The pale throngs who in forest cowed
Before the
spell of battle's pause,
Forefelt the stillness that shall dwell
On them
and on their wars.
North and South shall join the train
Of Yorkist and Lancastrian.
But where the sword has plunged so deep,
And then been