The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman Part 3

I hear the great drums pounding, And the small drums steady whirring, And every blow of the great convulsive drums, Strikes me through and through.

For the son is brought with the father (In the foremost ranks of the fierce a.s.sault they fell, Two veterans, son and father, dropt together, And the double grave awaits them).

Now nearer blow the bugles, And the drums strike more convulsive, And the daylight over the pavement quite has faded, And the strong dead-march enwraps me.

In the eastern sky up-buoying, The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin'd ('Tis some mother's large transparent face, In heaven brighter growing).

O strong dead-march you please me!

O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!

O my soldiers twain! O my veterans pa.s.sing to burial!

What I have I also give you.

The moon gives you light, And the bugles and the drums give you music, And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, My heart gives you love.

FROM FAR DAKOTA'S CAnONS

_June 25, 1876._

From far Dakota's canons, Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lonesome stretch, the silence, Haply to-day a mournful wail, haply a trumpet-note for heroes.

The battle-bulletin, The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal environment, The cavalry companies fighting to the last in sternest heroism, In the midst of their little circle, with their slaughter'd horses for breastworks, The fall of Custer and all his officers and men.

Continues yet the old, old legend of our race, The loftiest of life upheld by death, The ancient banner perfectly maintain'd, O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee!

As sitting in dark days, Lone, sulky, through the time's thick murk looking in vain for light, for hope, From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof (The sun there at the centre though conceal'd, Electric life forever at the centre), Breaks forth a lightning flash.

Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle, I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever in front, bearing a bright sword in thy hand, Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds (I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad triumphal sonnet), Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most glorious, After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a colour, Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers, Thou yieldest up thyself.

OLD WAR-DREAMS

In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded (of that indescribable look), Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide, I dream, I dream, I dream.

Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains, Of skies so beauteous after a storm, and at night the moon so unearthly bright, s.h.i.+ning sweetly, s.h.i.+ning down, where we dig the trenches and gather the heaps, I dream, I dream, I dream.

Long have they pa.s.s'd, faces and trenches and fields, Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away from the fallen, Onward I sped at the time--but now of their forms at night, I dream, I dream, I dream.

DELICATE Cl.u.s.tER

Delicate cl.u.s.ter! flag of teeming life!

Covering all my lands--all my seash.o.r.es lining!

Flag of death! (how I watch'd you through the smoke of battle pressing!

How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!) Flag cerulean--sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled!

Ah my silvery beauty--ah my woolly white and crimson!

Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty!

My sacred one, my mother!

TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN

Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me?

Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languis.h.i.+ng rhymes?

Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?

Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand--nor am I now; (I have been born of the same as the war was born, The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well the martial dirge, With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer's funeral); What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave my works, And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with piano-tunes, For I lull n.o.body, and you will never understand me.

ADIEU TO A SOLDIER

Adieu O soldier, You of the rude campaigning (which we shared), The rapid march, the life of the camp, The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long manoeuvre, Red battles with their slaughter, the stimulus, the strong terrific game, Spell of all brave and manly hearts, the trains of time through you and like of you all fill'd, With war and war's expression.

Adieu dear comrade, Your mission is fulfill'd--but I, more warlike, Myself and this contentious soul of mine, Still on our own campaigning bound, Through untried roads with ambushes opponents lined, Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis, often baffled, Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out--aye here, To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.

LONG, TOO LONG AMERICA

Long, too long America, Travelling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only, But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not, And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-ma.s.se really are.

(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-ma.s.se really are?).

II

POEMS OF AFTER-WAR