Chapter IV: This Dust Was Once the Man

This dust was once the man, Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand, Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age, Was saved the Union of these States.

LYRICS OF THE WAR

BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!

Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows--through doors --burst like a ruthless force. Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation, Into the school where the scholar is studying; Leave not the bridegroom quiet--no happiness must he have now with his bride, Nor the peaceful farmer any peace ploughing his field or gathering his grain, So fierce you whirr and pound you drums--so shrill you bugles blow.

Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow! Over the traffic of cities--over the rumble of wheels in the streets; Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in those beds, No bargainers' bargains by day--no brokers or speculators--would they continue? Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing? Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge? Then rattle quicker, heavier drums--you bugles wilder blow.

Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow! Make no parley--stop for no expostulation, Mind not the timid--mind not the weeper or prayer, Mind not the old man beseeching the young man, Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties, Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses, So strong you thump O terrible drums --so loud you bugles blow.

COME UP FROM THE FIELDS FATHER

Come up from the fields father, here's a letter from our Pete, And come to the front door mother, here's a letter from thy dear son.

Lo, 't is autumn, Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder, Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind, Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and grapes on the trellis'd vines, (Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines? Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?) Above all, lo, the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with wondrous clouds, Below too, all calm, all vital and beautiful, and the farm prospers well.

Down in the fields all prospers well, But now from the fields come father, come at the daughter's call, And come to the entry mother, to the front door come right away. Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her steps trembling, She does not tarry to smooth her hair nor adjust her cap. Open the envelope quickly, O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is sign'd, O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken mother's soul! All swims before her eyes, flashes with black, she catches the main words only, Sentences broken, _gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital, At present low, but will soon be better._

Ah now the single figure to me, Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and farms, Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint, By the jamb of a door leans.

_Grieve not so, dear mother_, (the justgrown daughter speaks through her sobs, The little sisters huddle around speechless and dismay'd,) _See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better._ Alas poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be better, that brave and simple soul,) While they stand at home at the door he is dead already, The only son is dead.

But the mother needs to be better, She with thin form presently drest in black, By day her meals untouch'd, then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking, In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing, O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and withdraw, To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.

THE WOUND-DRESSER

1

An old man bending I come among new faces, Years looking backward resuming in answer to children, Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me, (Arous'd and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war, But soon my fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd and I resign'd myself, To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;) Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances, Of unsurpass'd heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;) Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth, Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us? What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics, Of har'd-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?

2

O maidens and young men I love and that love me, What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls, Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover'd with sweat and dust, In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the rush of successful charge, Enter the captur'd works--yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade, Pass and are gone they fade--I dwell not on soldiers' perils or soldiers' joys, (Both I remember well--many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content.)

But in silence, in dreams' projections, While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on. So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand, With hinged knees returning I enter the doors, (while for you up there, Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart.) Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, Straight and swift to my wounded I go, Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in, Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground, Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital, To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return, To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss, An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail, Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again, I onward go, I stop, With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds, I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable, One turns to me his appealing eyes-- poor boy! I never knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you.

3

On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!) The crush'd head I dress, (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage away,) The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through I examine, Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard, (Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death! In mercy come quickly.)

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand, I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood, Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv'd neck and side-falling head, His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump, And has not yet look'd on it.

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep, But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking, And the yellow-blue countenance see. I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound, Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive, While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail.

I am faithful, I do not give out, The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen, These and more I dress with impassive hand, (yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame.)

4

Thus in silence in dreams' projections, Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals, The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand, I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young, Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad, (Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested, Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)

SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE

(_Washington City_, 1865)

Spirit whose work is done--spirit of dreadful hours! Ere departing fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets; Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, (yet onward ever unfaltering pressing,) Spirit of many a solemn day and many a savage scene--electric spirit, That with muttering voice through the war now closed, like a tireless phantom flitted, Rousing the land with breath of flame, while you beat and beat the drum, Now as the sound of the drum, hollow and harsh to the last, reverberates round me, As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return, return from the battles, As the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders, As I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders, As those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them appearing in the distance, approach and pass on, returning homeward, Moving with steady motion, swaying to and fro to the right and left, Evenly lightly rising and falling while the steps keep time; Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one day, but pale as death next day, Touch my mouth ere you depart, press my lips close, Leave me your pulses of rage--bequeath them to me--fill me with currents convulsive, Let them scorch and blister out of my chants when you are gone, Let them identify you to the future in these songs.

ASHES OF SOLDIERS

Ashes of soldiers South or North, As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought, The war resumes, again to my sense your shapes, And again the advance of the armies.

Noiseless as mists and vapors, From their graves in the trenches ascending, From cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee, From every point of the compass out of the countless graves, In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos or threes or single ones they come, And silently gather round me.

Now sound no note O trumpeters, Not at the head of my cavalry parading on spirited horses, With sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines by their thighs, (ah my brave horsemen! My handsome tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride, With all the perils were yours.)

Nor you drummers, neither at reveille at dawn, Nor the long roll alarming the camp, nor even the muffled beat for a burial, Nothing from you this time O drummers bearing my warlike drums.

But aside from these and the marts of wealth and the crowded promenade, Admitting around me comrades close unseen by the rest and voiceless, The slain elate and alive again, the dust and debris alive, I chant this chant of my silent soul in the name of all dead soldiers.

Faces so pale with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet, Draw close, but speak not.

Phantoms of countless lost, Invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions, Follow me ever--desert me not while I live.

Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living--sweet are the musical voices sounding, But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes. Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone, But love is not over--and what love, O comrades! Perfume from battle-fields rising, up from the fœtor arising.

Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love, Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers, Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride.

Perfume all--make all wholesome, Make these ashes to nourish and blossom, O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.

Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain, That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew, For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North.

PENSIVE ON HER DEAD GAZING

Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All, Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing, (As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd,) As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd, Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my sons, lose not an atom, And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood, And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly impalpable, And all you essences of soil and growth, and you my rivers' depths, And you mountain sides, and the woods where my dear children's blood trickling redden'd, And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees. My dead absorb or South or North--my young men's bodies absorb, and their precious, precious blood, Which holding in trust for me faithfully back again give me many a year hence, In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence, In blowing airs from the fields back again give me my darlings, give my immortal heroes, Exhale me them centuries hence, breathe me their breath, let not an atom be lost, O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet! Exhale them perennial sweet death, years, centuries hence.

CAMPS OF GREEN

Not alone those camps of white, old comrades of the wars, When as order'd forward, after a long march, Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens we halt for the night, Some of us so fatigued carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in our tracks, Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to sparkle, Outposts of pickets posted surrounding alert through the dark, And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety, Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums, We rise up refresh'd, the night and sleep pass'd over, and resume our journey, Or proceed to battle.

Lo, the camps of the tents of green, Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling, With a mystic army, (is it too order'd forward? is it too only halting awhile, Till night and sleep pass over?)

Now in those camps of green, in their tents dotting the world, In the parents, children, husbands, wives in them, in the old and young, Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moonlight, content and silent there at last, Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting camp of all, Of the corps and generals all, and the President over the corps and generals all, And of each of us O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we fought, (There without hatred we all, all meet.)

For presently O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the bivouac-camps of green, But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the countersign, Nor drummer to beat the morning drum.