Complete Poetical Works | Page 6

and bursting bomb,?When my brothers fall around me,?Should my heart grow cold and numb?"
But the drum?Answered, "Come!?Better there in death united, than in life a recreant.--Come!"
Thus they answered,--hoping, fearing,?Some in faith, and doubting some,?Till a trumpet-voice proclaiming,?Said, "My chosen people, come!"
Then the drum,?Lo! was dumb,?For the great heart of the nation, throbbing, answered, "Lord, we come!"
OUR PRIVILEGE
Not ours, where battle smoke upcurls,?And battle dews lie wet,?To meet the charge that treason hurls?By sword and bayonet.
Not ours to guide the fatal scythe?The fleshless Reaper wields;?The harvest moon looks calmly down?Upon our peaceful fields.
The long grass dimples on the hill,?The pines sing by the sea,?And Plenty, from her golden horn,?Is pouring far and free.
O brothers by the farther sea!?Think still our faith is warm;?The same bright flag above us waves?That swathed our baby form.
The same red blood that dyes your fields?Here throbs in patriot pride,--?The blood that flowed when Lander fell,?And Baker's crimson tide.
And thus apart our hearts keep time?With every pulse ye feel,?And Mercy's ringing gold shall chime?With Valor's clashing steel.
RELIEVING GUARD
THOMAS STARR KING. OBIIT MARCH 4, 1864
Came the relief. "What, sentry, ho!?How passed the night through thy long waking?"?"Cold, cheerless, dark,--as may befit?The hour before the dawn is breaking."
"No sight? no sound?" "No; nothing save?The plover from the marshes calling,?And in yon western sky, about?An hour ago, a star was falling."
"A star? There's nothing strange in that."?"No, nothing; but, above the thicket,?Somehow it seemed to me that God?Somewhere had just relieved a picket."
THE GODDESS
CONTRIBUTED TO THE FAIR FOR THE LADIES' PATRIOTIC FUND OF THE PACIFIC
"Who comes?" The sentry's warning cry?Rings sharply on the evening air:?Who comes? The challenge: no reply,?Yet something motions there.
A woman, by those graceful folds;?A soldier, by that martial tread:?"Advance three paces. Halt! until?Thy name and rank be said."
"My name? Her name, in ancient song,?Who fearless from Olympus came:?Look on me! Mortals know me best?In battle and in flame."
"Enough! I know that clarion voice;?I know that gleaming eye and helm,?Those crimson lips,--and in their dew?The best blood of the realm.
"The young, the brave, the good and wise,?Have fallen in thy curst embrace:?The juices of the grapes of wrath?Still stain thy guilty face.
"My brother lies in yonder field,?Face downward to the quiet grass:?Go back! he cannot see thee now;?But here thou shalt not pass."
A crack upon the evening air,?A wakened echo from the hill:?The watchdog on the distant shore?Gives mouth, and all is still.
The sentry with his brother lies?Face downward on the quiet grass;?And by him, in the pale moonshine,?A shadow seems to pass.
No lance or warlike shield it bears:?A helmet in its pitying hands?Brings water from the nearest brook,?To meet his last demands.
Can this be she of haughty mien,?The goddess of the sword and shield??Ah, yes! The Grecian poet's myth?Sways still each battlefield.
For not alone that rugged War?Some grace or charm from Beauty gains;?But, when the goddess' work is done,?The woman's still remains.
ON A PEN OF THOMAS STARR KING
This is the reed the dead musician dropped,?With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden;?The prompt allegro of its music stopped,?Its melodies unbidden.
But who shall finish the unfinished strain,?Or wake the instrument to awe and wonder,?And bid the slender barrel breathe again,?An organ-pipe of thunder!
His pen! what humbler memories cling about?Its golden curves! what shapes and laughing graces?Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out?In smiles and courtly phrases?
The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung;?The word of cheer, with recognition in it;?The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung?The golden gift within it.
But all in vain the enchanter's wand we wave:?No stroke of ours recalls his magic vision:?The incantation that its power gave?Sleeps with the dead magician.
A SECOND REVIEW OF THE GRAND ARMY
I read last night of the grand review?In Washington's chiefest avenue,--?Two hundred thousand men in blue,
I think they said was the number,--?Till I seemed to hear their trampling feet,?The bugle blast and the drum's quick beat,?The clatter of hoofs in the stony street,?The cheers of people who came to greet,?And the thousand details that to repeat
Would only my verse encumber,--?Till I fell in a reverie, sad and sweet,
And then to a fitful slumber.
When, lo! in a vision I seemed to stand?In the lonely Capitol. On each hand?Far stretched the portico, dim and grand?Its columns ranged like a martial band?Of sheeted spectres, whom some command
Had called to a last reviewing.?And the streets of the city were white and bare,?No footfall echoed across the square;?But out of the misty midnight air?I heard in the distance a trumpet blare,?And the wandering night-winds seemed to bear
The sound of a far tattooing.
Then I held my breath with fear and dread?For into the square, with a brazen tread,?There rode a figure whose stately head
O'erlooked the review that morning,?That never bowed from its firm-set seat?When the living column passed its feet,?Yet now rode steadily up the street
To the phantom bugle's warning:
Till