Chapter 3
Three cheers for the grave commander Of the grand old Tennessee! Who won the first great battle— Gained the first great victory. His motto was always “Conquer,” “Success” was his countersign, And “though it took all Summer,” He kept fighting upon “that line.”
Let Sherman, the stern old General, Come rallying with his men; Let them march once more through Georgia And down to the sea again. Oh! that grand old tramp to Savannah, Three hundred miles to the coast, It will live in the heart of the nation, For ever its pride and boast.
As Sheridan went to the battle, When a score of miles away, He has come to the feast and banquet, By the iron horse to-day. Its pace is not much swifter Than the pace of that famous steed Which bore him down to the contest And saved the day by his speed.
Then go over the ground to-day, boys Tread each remembered spot. It will be a gleesome journey, On the swift-shod feet of thought; You can fight a bloodless battle, You can skirmish along the route, But it’s not worth while to forage, There are rations enough without.
Don’t start if you hear the cannon, It is not the sound of doom, It does not call to the contest— To the battle’s smoke and gloom. “Let us have peace,” was spoken, And lo! peace ruled again; And now the nation is shouting, Through the cannon’s voice, “Amen.”
O boys who besieged old Vicksburgh, Can time e’er wash away The triumph of her surrender, Nine years ago to-day? Can you ever forget the moment, When you saw the flag of white, That told how the grim old city Had fallen in her might?
Ah, ’twas a bold, brave army, When the boys, with a right good will, Went gaily marching and singing To the fight at Champion Hill. They met with a warm reception, But the soul of “Old John Brown” Was abroad on that field of battle, And our flag did NOT go down.
Come, heroes of Look Out Mountain, Of Corinth and Donelson, Of Kenesaw and Atlanta, And tell how the day was won! Hush! bow the head for a moment— There are those who cannot come. No bugle-call can arouse them— No sound of fife or drum.
Oh, boys who died for the country, Oh, dear and sainted dead! What can we say about you That has not once been said? Whether you fell in the contest, Struck down by shot and shell, Or pined ’neath the hand of sickness Or starved in the prison cell,
We know that you died for Freedom, To save our land from shame, To rescue a perilled Nation, And we give you deathless fame. ’Twas the cause of Truth and Justice That you fought and perished for, And we say it, oh, so gently, “Our boys who died in the war.”
Saviours of our Republic, Heroes who wore the blue, We owe the peace that surrounds us— And our Nation’s strength to you. We owe it to you that our banner, The fairest flag in the world, Is to-day unstained, unsullied, On the Summer air unfurled.
We look on its stripes and spangles, And our hearts are filled the while With love for the brave commanders, And the boys of the rank and file. The grandest deeds of valour Were never written out, The noblest acts of virtue The world knows nothing about.
And many a private soldier, Who walks his humble way, With no sounding name or title, Unknown to the world to-day, In the eyes of God is a hero As worthy of the bays As any mighty General To whom the world gives praise.
Brave men of a mighty army, We extend you friendship’s hand I speak for the “Loyal Women,” Those pillars of our land. We wish you a hearty welcome, We are proud that you gather here To talk of old times together On this brightest day in the year.
And if Peace, whose snow-white pinions Brood over our land to-day, Should ever again go from us, (God grant she may ever stay!) Should our Nation call in her peril For “Six hundred thousand more,” The loyal women would hear her, And send you out as before.
We would bring out the treasured knapsack, We would take the sword from the wall, And hushing our own hearts’ pleadings, Hear only the country’s call. For next to our God is our Nation; And we cherish the honoured name Of the bravest of all brave armies Who fought for that Nation’s fame.
AND THEY ARE DUMB
I have been across the bridges of the years. Wet with tears Were the ties on which I trod, going back Down the track To the valley where I left, ’neath skies of Truth, My lost youth.
As I went, I dropped my burdens, one and all— Let them fall; All my sorrows, all my wrinkles, all my care, My white hair, I laid down, like some lone pilgrim’s heavy pack, By the track.
As I neared the happy valley with light feet, My heart beat To the rhythm of a song I used to know Long ago, And my spirits gushed and bubbled like a fountain Down a mountain.
On the border of that valley I found you, Tried and true; And we wandered through the golden Summer-Land Hand in hand. And my pulses beat with rapture in the blisses Of your kisses.
And we met there, in those green and verdant places, Smiling faces, And sweet laughter echoed upward from the dells Like gold bells. And the world was spilling over with the glory Of Youth’s story.
It was but a dreamer’s journey of the brain; And again I have left the happy valley far behind; And I find Time stands waiting with his burdens in a pack For my back.
As he speeds me, like a rough, well-meaning friend, To the end, Will I find again the lost ones loved so well? Who can tell! But the dead know what the life will be to come— And they are dumb!
NIGHT
As some dusk mother shields from all alarms The tired child she gathers to her breast, The brunette Night doth fold me in her arms, And hushes me to perfect peace and rest. Her eyes of stars shine on me, and I hear Her voice of winds low crooning on my ear. O Night, O Night, how beautiful thou art! Come, fold me closer to thy pulsing heart.
The day is full of gladness, and the light So beautifies the common outer things, I only see with my external sight, And only hear the great world’s voice which rings. But silently from daylight and from din The sweet Night draws me—whispers, “Look within!” And looking, as one wakened from a dream, I see what _is_—no longer what doth seem.
The Night says, “Listen!” and upon my ear Revealed, as are the visions to my sight, The voices known as “Beautiful” come near And whisper of the vastly Infinite. Great, blue-eyed Truth, her sister Purity, Their brother Honour, all converse with me, And kiss my brow, and say, “Be brave of heart!” O holy three! how beautiful thou art!
The Night says, “Child, sleep that thou may’st arise Strong for to-morrow’s struggle.” And I feel Her shadowy fingers pressing on my eyes: Like thistledown I float to the Ideal— The Slumberland, made beautiful and bright As death, by dreams of loved ones gone from sight, O food for souls, sweet dreams of pure delight, How beautiful the holy hours of Night!
ALL FOR ME
The world grows green on a thousand hills— By a thousand willows the bees are humming, And a million birds by a million rills, Sing of the golden season coming. But, gazing out on the sun-kist lea, And hearing a thrush and a blue-bird singing, I feel that the summer is all for me, And all for me are the joys it is bringing.
All for me the bumble-bee Drones his song in the perfect weather; And, just on purpose to sing to me, Thrush and blue-bird came North together. Just for me, in red and white, Bloom and blossom the fields of clover; And all for me and my delight The wild Wind follows and plays the lover.
The mighty sun, with a scorching kiss (I have read, and heard, and do not doubt it) Has burned up a thousand worlds like this, And never stopped to think about it. And yet I believe he hurries up Just on purpose to kiss my flowers— To drink the dew from the lily-cup, And help it to grow through golden hours.
I know I am only a speck of dust, An individual mite of masses, Clinging upon the outer crust Of a little ball of cooling gases. And yet, and yet, say what you will, And laugh, if you please, at my lack of reason, For me wholly, and for me still, Blooms and blossoms the Summer season.
Nobody else has ever heard The story the Wind to me discloses; And none but I and the humming-bird Can read the hearts of the crimson roses. Ah, my Summer—my love—my own! The world grows glad in your smiling weather; Yet all for me, and me alone, You and your Court came North together.
INTO SPACE
If the sad old world should jump a cog Sometime, in its dizzy spinning, And go off the track with a sudden jog, What an end would come to the sinning, What a rest from strife and the burdens of life For the millions of people in it, What a way out of care, and worry and wear, All in a beautiful minute.
As ’round the sun with a curving sweep It hurries and runs and races, Should it lose its balance, and go with a leap Into the vast sea-spaces, What a blest relief it would bring to the grief, And the trouble and toil about us, To be suddenly hurled from the solar world And let it go on without us.
With not a sigh or a sad good-bye For loved ones left behind us, We would go with a lunge and a mighty plunge Where never a grave should find us. What a wild mad thrill our veins would fill As the great earth, like a feather, Should float through the air to God knows where, And carry us all together.
No dark, damp tomb and no mourner’s gloom, No tolling bell in the steeple, But in one swift breath a painless death For a million billion people. What greater bliss could we ask than this, To sweep with a bird’s free motion Through leagues of space to a resting place, In a vast and vapoury ocean— To pass away from this life for aye With never a dear tie sundered, And a world on fire for a funeral pyre, While the stars looked on and wondered?
THROUGH DIM EYES
Is it the world, or my eyes, that are sadder? I see not the grace that I used to see In the meadow-brook whose song was so glad, or In the boughs of the willow tree. The brook runs slower—its song seems lower And not the song that it sang of old; And the tree I admired looks weary and tired Of the changeless story of heat and cold.
When the sun goes up, and the stars go under, In that supreme hour of the breaking day, Is it my eyes, or the dawn, I wonder, That finds less of the gold, and more of the gray I see not the splendour, the tints so tender, The rose-hued glory I used to see; And I often borrow a vague half-sorrow That another morning has dawned for me.
When the royal smile of that welcome comer Beams on the meadow and burns in the sky, Is it my eyes, or does the Summer Bring less of bloom than in days gone by? The beauty that thrilled me, the rapture that filled me, To an overflowing of happy tears, I pass unseeing, my sad eyes being Dimmed by the shadow of vanished years.
When the heart grows weary, all things seem dreary; When the burden grows heavy, the way seems long. Thank God for sending kind death as an ending, Like a grand Amen to a minor song.
THE PUNISHED
Not they who know the awful gibbet’s anguish, Not they who, while sad years go by them, in The sunless cells of lonely prisons languish, Do suffer fullest penalty for sin.
’Tis they who walk the highways unsuspected, Yet with grim fear for ever at their side, Who hug the corpse of some sin undetected, A corpse no grave or coffin-lid can hide—
’Tis they who are in their own chambers haunted By thoughts that like unbidden guests intrude, And sit down, uninvited and unwanted, And make a nightmare of the solitude.
HALF FLEDGED
I feel the stirrings in me of great things. New half-fledged thoughts rise up and beat their wings, And tremble on the margin of their nest, Then flutter back, and hide within my breast.
Beholding space, they doubt their untried strength. Beholding men, they fear them. But at length, Grown all too great and active for the heart That broods them with such tender mother art, Forgetting fear, and men, and all, that hour, Save the impelling consciousness of power That stirs within them—they shall soar away Up to the very portals of the Day.
Oh, what exultant rapture thrills me through When I contemplate all those thoughts may do; Like snow-white eagles penetrating space, They may explore full many an unknown place, And build their nests on mountain heights unseen, Whereon doth lie that dreamed-of rest serene. Stay thou a little longer in my breast, Till my fond heart shall push thee from the nest Anxious to see thee soar to heights divine— Oh, beautiful but half-fledged thoughts of mine.
THE YEAR
What can be said in New Year rhymes, That’s not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go, We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light, We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings, We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed, We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear, And that’s the burden of the year.
THE UNATTAINED
A vision beauteous as the morn, With heavenly eyes and tresses streaming, Slow glided o’er a field late shorn Where walked a poet idly dreaming. He saw her, and joy lit his face, “Oh, vanish not at human speaking,” He cried, “thou form of magic grace, Thou art the poem I am seeking.
“I’ve sought thee long! I claim thee now— My thought embodied, living, real.” She shook the tresses from her brow. “Nay, nay!” she said, “I am ideal. I am the phantom of desire— The spirit of all great endeavour, I am the voice that says, ‘Come higher,’ That calls men up and up for ever.
“’Tis not alone thy thought supreme That here upon thy path has risen; I am the artist’s highest dream, The ray of light he cannot prison. I am the sweet ecstatic note Than all glad music gladder, clearer, That trembles in the singer’s throat, And dies without a human hearer.
“I am the greater, better yield, That leads and cheers thy farmer neighbour, For me he bravely tills the field And whistles gaily at his labour. Not thou alone, O poet soul, Dost seek me through an endless morrow, But to the toiling, hoping whole I am at once the hope and sorrow.
“The spirit of the unattained, I am to those who seek to name me, A good desired but never gained: All shall pursue, but none shall claim me.”
IN THE CROWD
How happy they are, in all seeming, How gay, or how smilingly proud, How brightly their faces are beaming, These people who make up the crowd! How they bow, how they bend, how they flutter, How they look at each other and smile, How they glow, and what _bon mots_ they utter! But a strange thought has found me the while!
It is odd, but I stand here and fancy These people who now play a part, All forced by some strange necromancy To speak, and to act, from the heart. What a hush would come over the laughter! What a silence would fall on the mirth! And then what a wail would sweep after, As the night-wind sweeps over the earth!
If the secrets held under and hidden In the intricate hearts of the crowd Were suddenly called to, and bidden To rise up and cry out aloud, How strange one would look to another! Old friends of long standing and years— Own brothers would not know each other, Robed new in their sorrows and fears.
From broadcloth, and velvet, and laces, Would echo the groans of despair, And there would be blanching of faces And wringing of hands and of hair. That man with his record of honour, That lady down there with the rose, That girl with Spring’s freshness upon her, Who knoweth the secrets of those?
Smile on, O ye maskers, smile sweetly! Step lightly, bow low and laugh loud! Though the world is deceived and completely, I know ye, O sad-hearted crowd! I watch you with infinite pity: But play on, play ever your part, Be gleeful, be joyful, be witty! ’Tis better than showing the heart.
LIFE AND I
Life and I are lovers, straying Arm in arm along: Often like two children Maying, Full of mirth and song,
Life plucks all the blooming hours Growing by the way; Binds them on my brow like flowers, Calls me Queen of May.
Then again, in rainy weather, We sit vis-à-vis, Planning work we’ll do together In the years to be.
Sometimes Life denies me blisses, And I frown or pout; But we make it up with kisses Ere the day is out.
Woman-like, I sometimes grieve him, Try his trust and faith, Saying I shall one day leave him For his rival, Death.
Then he always grows more zealous, Tender, and more true; Loves the more for being jealous, As all lovers do.
Though I swear by stars above him, And by worlds beyond, That I love him—love him—love him; Though my heart is fond;
Though he gives me, doth my lover, Kisses with each breath— I shall one day throw him over, And plight troth with Death.
GUERDON
Upon the white cheek of the Cherub Year I saw a tear. Alas! I murmured, that the Year should borrow So soon a sorrow. Just then the sunlight fell with sudden flame: The tear became A wondrous diamond sparkling in the light— A beauteous sight.
Upon my soul there fell such woeful loss, I said, “The Cross Is grievous for a life as young as mine.” Just then, like wine, God’s sunlight shone from His high Heavens down; And lo! a crown Gleamed in the place of what I thought a burden— My sorrow’s guerdon.
SNOWED UNDER
Of a thousand things that the Year snowed under— The busy Old Year who has gone away— How many will rise in the Spring, I wonder, Brought to life by the sun of May? Will the rose-tree branches, so wholly hidden That never a rose-tree seems to be, At the sweet Spring’s call come forth unbidden, And bud in beauty, and bloom for me?
Will the fair green Earth, whose throbbing bosom Is hid like a maid’s in her gown at night, Wake out of her sleep, and with blade and blossom Gem her garments to please my sight? Over the knoll in the valley yonder The loveliest buttercups bloomed and grew; When the snow has gone that drifted them under, Will they shoot up sunward, and bloom anew?
When wild winds blew, and a sleet-storm pelted, I lost a jewel of priceless worth; If I walk that way when snows have melted, Will the gem gleam up from the bare brown Earth? I laid a love that was dead or dying, For the year to bury and hide from sight; But out of a trance will it waken, crying, And push to my heart, like a leaf to the light?
Under the snow lie things so cherished— Hopes, ambitions, and dreams of men— Faces that vanished, and trusts that perished, Never to sparkle and glow again. The Old Year greedily grasped his plunder, And covered it over and hurried away: Of the thousand things that he did, I wonder How many will rise at the call of May? O wise Young Year, with your hands held under Your mantle of ermine, tell me, pray!
“LEUDEMANNS-ON-THE-RIVER.”
Toward even, when the day leans down To kiss the upturned face of night, Out just beyond the loud-voiced town I know a spot of calm delight. Like crimson arrows from a quiver The red rays pierce the waters flowing, While we go dreaming, singing, rowing To Leudemanns-on-the-River.
The hills, like some glad mocking-bird, Send back our laughter and our singing, While faint—and yet more faint is heard The steeple bells all sweetly ringing. Some message did the winds deliver To each glad heart that August night, All heard, but all heard not aright, By Leudemanns-on-the-River.
Night falls as in some foreign clime, Between the hills that slope and rise. So dusk the shades at landing-time, We could not see each other’s eyes. We only saw the moonbeams quiver Far down upon the stream! that night The new moon gave but little light By Leudemanns-on-the-River.
How dusky were those paths that led Up from the river to the hall. The tall trees branching overhead Invite the early shades that fall. In all the glad blithe world, oh, never Were hearts more free from care than when We wandered through those walks, we ten, By Leudemanns-on-the-River.
So soon, so soon, the changes came. This August day we two alone, On that same river, not the same, Dream of a night for ever flown. Strange distances have come to sever The hearts that gaily beat in pleasure, Long miles we cannot cross or measure— From Leudemanns-on-the-River.
We’ll pluck two leaves, dear friend, to-day. The green, the russet! seems it strange So soon, so soon, the leaves can change! Ah me! so runs all life away. This night-wind chills me, and I shiver; The Summer-time is almost past. One more good-bye—perhaps the last To Leudemanns-on-the-River.
LITTLE BLUE HOOD
Every morning and every night There passes our window near the street, A little girl with an eye so bright, And a cheek so round and a lip so sweet! The daintiest, jauntiest little miss That ever any one longed to kiss,
She is neat as wax, and fresh to view, And her look is wholesome, and clean, and good. Whatever her gown, her hood is blue, And so we call her our “Little Blue Hood,” For we know not the name of the dear little lass, But we call to each other to see her pass,
“Little Blue Hood is coming now!” And we watch from the window while she goes by, She has such a bonny, smooth, white brow, And a fearless look in her long-lashed eye! And a certain dignity wedded to grace Seems to envelop her form and face.
Every morning, in sun or rain, She walks by the window with sweet, grave air, And never guesses behind the pane We two are watching and thinking her fair; Lovingly watching her down the street, Dear little Blue Hood, bright and sweet.
Somebody ties that hood of blue Under the face so fair to see, Somebody loves her, beside we two, Somebody kisses her—why can’t we? Dear Little Blue Hood fresh and fair, Are you glad we love you, or don’t you care?
NO SPRING