John Marr and Other Poems Part 10

He said, and measured the mountain then: So master-riders fling the rein-- But you must know your men.

On yester-morn in grayish mist, Armies like ghosts on hills had fought, And rolled from the cloud their thunders loud The c.u.mberlands far had caught: To-day the sunlit steeps are sought.

Grant stood on cliffs whence all was plain, And smoked as one who feels no cares; But mastered nervousness intense Alone such calmness wears.

The summit-cannon plunge their flame Sheer down the primal wall, But up and up each linking troop In stretching festoons crawl-- Nor fire a shot. Such men appall The foe, though brave. He, from the brink, Looks far along the breadth of slope, And sees two miles of dark dots creep, And knows they mean the cope.

He sees them creep. Yet here and there Half hid 'mid leafless groves they go; As men who ply through traceries high Of turreted marbles show-- So dwindle these to eyes below.

But fronting shot and flanking sh.e.l.l Sliver and rive the inwoven ways; High tops of oaks and high hearts fall, But never the climbing stays.

From right to left, from left to right They roll the rallying cheer-- Vie with each other, brother with brother, Who shall the first appear-- What color-bearer with colors clear In sharp relief, like sky-drawn Grant, Whose cigar must now be near the stump-- While in solicitude his back Heaps slowly to a hump.

Near and more near; till now the flags Run like a catching flame; And one flares highest, to peril nighest-- _He_ means to make a name: Salvos! they give him his fame.

The staff is caught, and next the rush, And then the leap where death has led; Flag answered flag along the crest, And swarms of rebels fled.

But some who gained the envied Alp, And--eager, ardent, earnest there-- Dropped into Death's wide-open arms, Quelled on the wing like eagles struck in air-- Forever they slumber young and fair, The smile upon them as they died; Their end attained, that end a height: Life was to these a dream fulfilled, And death a starry night.

ON THE PHOTOGRAPH OF A CORPS COMMANDER

Ay, man is manly. Here you see The warrior-carriage of the head, And brave dilation of the frame; And lighting all, the soul that led In Spottsylvania's charge to victory, Which justifies his fame.

A cheering picture. It is good To look upon a Chief like this, In whom the spirit moulds the form.

Here favoring Nature, oft remiss, With eagle mien expressive has endued A man to kindle strains that warm.

Trace back his lineage, and his sires, Yeoman or n.o.ble, you shall find Enrolled with men of Agincourt, Heroes who shared great Harry's mind.

Down to us come the knightly Norman fires, And front the Templars bore.

Nothing can lift the heart of man Like manhood in a fellow-man.

The thought of heaven's great King afar But humbles us--too weak to scan; But manly greatness men can span, And feel the bonds that draw.

THE SWAMP ANGEL

There is a coal-black Angel With a thick Afric lip, And he dwells (like the hunted and harried) In a swamp where the green frogs dip.

But his face is against a City Which is over a bay of the sea, And he breathes with a breath that is blastment, And dooms by a far decree.

By night there is fear in the City, Through the darkness a star soareth on; There's a scream that screams up to the zenith, Then the poise of a meteor lone-- Lighting far the pale fright of the faces, And downward the coming is seen; Then the rush, and the burst, and the havoc, And wails and shrieks between.

It comes like the thief in the gloaming; It comes, and none may foretell The place of the coming--the glaring; They live in a sleepless spell That wizens, and withers, and whitens; It ages the young, and the bloom Of the maiden is ashes of roses-- The Swamp Angel broods in his gloom.

Swift is his messengers' going, But slowly he saps their halls, As if by delay deluding.

They move from their crumbling walls Farther and farther away; But the Angel sends after and after, By night with the flame of his ray-- By night with the voice of his screaming-- Sends after them, stone by stone, And farther walls fall, farther portals, And weed follows weed through the Town.

Is this the proud City? the scorner Which never would yield the ground?

Which mocked at the coal-black Angel?

The cup of despair goes round.

Vainly he calls upon Michael (The white man's seraph was he,) For Michael has fled from his tower To the Angel over the sea.

Who weeps for the woeful City Let him weep for our guilty kind; Who joys at her wild despairing-- Christ, the Forgiver, convert his mind.

SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK October, 1864

Shoe the steed with silver That bore him to the fray, When he heard the guns at dawning-- Miles away; When he heard them calling, calling-- Mount! nor stay: Quick, or all is lost; They've surprised and stormed the post, They push your routed host-- Gallop! retrieve the day.

House the horse in ermine-- For the foam-flake blew White through the red October; He thundered into view; They cheered him in the looming.

Horseman and horse they knew.

The turn of the tide began, The rally of bugles ran, He swung his hat in the van; The electric hoof-spark flew.

Wreathe the steed and lead him-- For the charge he led Touched and turned the cypress Into amaranths for the head Of Philip, king of riders, Who raised them from the dead.

The camp (at dawning lost), By eve, recovered--forced, Rang with laughter of the host At belated Early fled.

Shroud the horse in sable-- For the mounds they heap!

There is firing in the Valley, And yet no strife they keep; It is the parting volley, It is the pathos deep.

There is glory for the brave Who lead, and n.o.bly save, But no knowledge in the grave Where the nameless followers sleep.

IN THE PRISON PEN 1864

Listless he eyes the palisades And sentries in the glare; 'Tis barren as a pelican-beach But his world is ended there.

Nothing to do; and vacant hands Bring on the idiot-pain; He tries to think--to recollect, But the blur is on his brain.

Around him swarm the plaining ghosts Like those on Virgil's sh.o.r.e-- A wilderness of faces dim, And pale ones gashed and h.o.a.r.

A smiting sun. No shed, no tree; He totters to his lair-- A den that sick hands dug in earth Ere famine wasted there,

Or, dropping in his place, he swoons, Walled in by throngs that press, Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead-- Dead in his meagreness.

THE COLLEGE COLONEL

He rides at their head; A crutch by his saddle just slants in view, One slung arm is in splints, you see, Yet he guides his strong steed--how coldly too.

He brings his regiment home-- Not as they filed two years before, But a remnant half-tattered, and battered, and worn, Like castaway sailors, who--stunned By the surf's loud roar, Their mates dragged back and seen no more-- Again and again breast the surge, And at last crawl, spent, to sh.o.r.e.

A still rigidity and pale-- An Indian aloofness lones his brow; He has lived a thousand years Compressed in battle's pains and prayers, Marches and watches slow.

There are welcoming shouts, and flags; Old men off hat to the Boy, Wreaths from gay balconies fall at his feet, But to _him_--there comes alloy.