Drum-Taps Part 6

NOT YOUTH PERTAINS TO ME.

Not youth pertains to me, Nor delicatesse, I cannot beguile the time with talk, Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant, In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still, for learning inures not to me, Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me-yet there are two or three things inure to me, I have nourish'd the wounded and sooth'd many a dying soldier, And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp, Composed these songs.

RACE OF VETERANS.

Race of veterans--race of victors!

Race of the soil, ready for conflict--race of the conquering march; (No more credulity's race, abiding-temper'd race,) Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself, Race of pa.s.sion and the storm.

WORLD TAKE GOOD NOTICE.

World take good notice, silver stars fading, Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching, Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning, Scarlet, significant, hands off warning, Now and henceforth flaunt from these sh.o.r.es.

O TAN-FACED PRAIRIE-BOY.

O tan-faced prairie-boy, Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift, Praises and presents came and nouris.h.i.+ng food, till at last among the recruits, You came, taciturn, with nothing to give-we but look'd on each other, When lo; more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.

LOOK DOWN FAIR MOON.

Look down fair moon and bathe this scene, Pour softly down night's nimbus floods on faces ghastly, swollen, purple, On the dead on their backs with arms toss'd wide, Pour down your unstinted nimbus sacred moon.

RECONCILIATION.

Word over all, beautiful as the sky, Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost, That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world; For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin-I draw near, Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

HOW SOLEMN AS ONE BY ONE.

(_Was.h.i.+ngton City, 1865._)

How solemn as one by one, As the ranks returning worn and sweaty, as the men file by where I stand, As the faces the masks appear, as I glance at the faces studying the masks, (As I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear friend, whoever you are,) How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in the ranks, and to you, I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul, O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend, Nor the bayonet stab what you really are; The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best, Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill, Nor the bayonet stab O friend.

AS I LAY WITH MY HEAD IN YOUR LAP CAMERADO.

As I lay with my head in your lap camerado, The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air I resume, I know I am restless and make others so, I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death, For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them, I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me, I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule, And the threat of what is call'd h.e.l.l is little or nothing to me; And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me; Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination, Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated.

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.

LO, VICTRESS ON THE PEAKS.

Lo, Victress on the peaks, Where thou with mighty brow regarding the world, (The world O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee,) Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all, Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee, Flauntest now unharm'd in immortal soundness and bloom--lo, in these hours supreme, No poem proud, I chanting bring to thee, nor mastery's rapturous verse, But a cl.u.s.ter containing night's darkness and blood-dripping wounds, And psalms of the dead.