Drum-Taps Part 5

Give me interminable eyes--give me women--give me comrades and lovers by the thousand!

Let me see new ones every day--let me hold new ones by the hand every day!

Give me such shows--give me the streets of Manhattan!

Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching--give me the sound of the trumpets and drums!

(The soldiers in companies or regiments--some starting away, flush'd and reckless, Some, their time up, returning with thinn'd ranks, young, yet very old, worn, marching, noticing nothing;) Give me the sh.o.r.es and wharves heavy-fringed with black s.h.i.+ps!

O such for me! O an intense life, full to repletion and varied!

The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!

The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the torchlight procession!

The dense brigade bound for the war, with high piled military wagons following; People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, pa.s.sions, pageants, Manhattan streets with their powerful throbs, with beating drums as now, The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, (even the sight of the wounded,) Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus!

Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.

DIRGE FOR TWO VETERANS.

The last sunbeam Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath, On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking, Down a new-made double grave.

Lo, the moon ascending, Up from the east the silvery round moon, Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon, Immense and silent moon.

I see a sad procession, And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles, All the channels of the city streets they're flooding, As with voices and with tears.

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 o'er 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.

OVER THE CARNAGE ROSE PROPHETIC A VOICE.

Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice, Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet, Those who love each other shall become invincible, They shall yet make Columbia victorious.

Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious, You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.

No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers, If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.

One from Ma.s.sachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade, From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese, shall be friends triune, More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.

To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come, Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.

It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection, The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly, The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers, The continuance of equality shall be comrades.

These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron, I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.

(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?

Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?

Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)

I SAW OLD GENERAL AT BAY.

I saw old General at bay, (Old as he was, his gray eyes yet shone out in battle like stars,) His small force was now completely hemm'd in, in his works, He call'd for volunteers to run the enemy's lines, a desperate emergency, I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks, but two or three were selected, I saw them receive their orders aside, they listen'd with care, the adjutant was very grave, I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives.

THE ARTILLERYMAN'S VISION.

While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long, And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight pa.s.ses, And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath of my infant, There in the room as I wake from sleep this vision presses upon me; The engagement opens there and then in fantasy unreal, The skirmishers begin, they crawl cautiously ahead, I hear the irregular snap! snap!

I hear the sounds of the different missiles, the short _t-h-t!

t-h-t!_ of the rifle-b.a.l.l.s, I see the sh.e.l.ls exploding leaving small white clouds, I hear the great sh.e.l.ls shrieking as they pa.s.s, The grape like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees (tumultuous now the contest rages,) All the scenes at the batteries rise in detail before me again, The cras.h.i.+ng and smoking, the pride of the men in their pieces, The chief-gunner ranges and sights his piece and selects a fuse of the right time, After firing I see him lean aside and look eagerly off to note the effect; Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging, (the young colonel leads himself this time with brandish'd sword,) I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up, no delay,) I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover low concealing all; Now a strange lull for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side, Then resumed the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls and orders of officers, While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout of applause, (some special success,) And ever the sound of the cannon far or near, (rousing even in dreams a devilish exultation and all the old mad joy in the depths of my soul,) And ever the hastening of infantry s.h.i.+fting positions, batteries, cavalry, moving hither and thither, (The falling, dying, I heed not, the wounded dripping and red I heed not, some to the rear are hobbling,) Grime, heat, rush, aide-de-camps galloping by or on a full run, With the patter of small arms, the warning _s-s-t_ of the rifles, (these in my vision I hear or see,) And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-color'd rockets.

ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLOURS.

Who are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human, With your woolly-white and turban'd head, and bare bony feet Why rising by the roadside here, do you the colours greet?

('Tis while our army lines Carolina's sands and pines, Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia com'st to me, As under doughty Sherman I march toward the sea.)

_Me master years a hundred since from my parents sunder'd, A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught, Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought._

No further does she say, but lingering all the day, Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her darkling eye, And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons moving by.

What is it fateful woman, so blear, hardly human?

Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow, red and green?

Are the things so strange and marvellous you see or have seen?