Complete Poetical Works | Page 7

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 it reached the Capitol square, and wheeled,
And there in the
moonlight stood revealed
A well-known form that in State and field
Had led our patriot sires:
Whose face was turned to the sleeping camp,

Afar through the river's fog and damp,
That showed no flicker, nor
waning lamp,
Nor wasted bivouac fires.
And I saw a phantom army come,
With never a sound of fife or drum,

But keeping time to a throbbing hum
Of wailing and lamentation:
The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill,

Of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville,
The men whose wasted figures
fill
The patriot graves of the nation.

And there came the nameless dead,--the men
Who perished in fever
swamp and fen,
The slowly-starved of the prison pen;
And, marching beside the others,
Came the dusky martyrs of Pillow's
fight,
With limbs enfranchised and bearing bright;
I
thought--perhaps 'twas the pale moonlight--
They looked as white as their brothers!
And so all night marched the nation's dead,
With never a banner
above them spread,
Nor a badge, nor a motto brandished;
No
mark--save the bare uncovered head
Of the silent bronze Reviewer;
With never an arch save the vaulted
sky;
With never a flower save those that lie
On the distant
graves--for love could buy
No gift that was purer or truer.
So all night long swept the strange array,
So all night long till the
morning gray
I watched for one who had passed away;
With a reverent awe and wonder,--
Till a blue cap waved in the
length'ning line,
And I knew that one who was kin of mine
Had
come; and I spake--and lo! that sign
Awakened me from my slumber.
THE COPPERHEAD
(1864)
There is peace in the swamp where the Copperhead sleeps,
Where the
waters are stagnant, the white vapor creeps,
Where the musk of
Magnolia hangs thick in the air,
And the lilies' phylacteries broaden
in prayer.
There is peace in the swamp, though the quiet is death,


Though the mist is miasma, the upas-tree's breath,
Though no echo
awakes to the cooing of doves,--
There is peace: yes, the peace that
the Copperhead loves.
Go seek him: he coils in the ooze and the drip,
Like a thong idly
flung from the slave-driver's whip;
But beware the false footstep,--the
stumble that brings
A deadlier lash than the overseer swings.
Never
arrow so true, never bullet so dread,
As the straight steady stroke of
that hammer-shaped head;
Whether slave or proud planter, who
braves that dull crest, Woe to him who shall trouble the Copperhead's
rest!
Then why waste your labors, brave hearts and strong men,
In tracking
a trail to the Copperhead's den?
Lay your axe to the cypress, hew
open the shade
To the free sky and sunshine Jehovah has made;
Let
the breeze of the North sweep the vapors away,
Till the stagnant lake
ripples, the freed waters play;
And then to your heel can you
righteously doom
The Copperhead born of its shadow and gloom!
A SANITARY MESSAGE
Last night, above the whistling wind,
I heard the welcome rain,--
A
fusillade upon the roof,
A tattoo on the pane:
The keyhole piped;
the chimney-top
A warlike trumpet blew;
Yet, mingling with these
sounds of strife,
A softer voice stole through.
"Give thanks, O brothers!" said the voice,
"That He who sent the
rains
Hath spared your fields the scarlet dew
That drips from patriot
veins:
I've seen the grass on Eastern graves
In brighter verdure rise;

But, oh! the rain that gave it life
Sprang first from human eyes.
"I come to wash away no stain
Upon your wasted lea;
I raise