Herman Melville- Complete Poems Read online

  Hardly it seemed the same that pricked

  Forth to the forest from the camp:

  Foot-sore horses, jaded men;

  Every backbone felt as nicked,

  Each eye dim as a sick-room lamp,

  All faces stamped with Mosby’s stamp.

  In order due the Major rode—

  Chaplain and Surgeon on either hand;

  A riderless horse a negro led;

  In a wagon the blanketed sleeper went;

  Then the ambulance with the bleeding band;

  And, an emptied oat-bag on each head,

  Went Mosby’s men, and marked the dead.

  What gloomed them? what so cast them down,

  And changed the cheer that late they took,

  As double-guarded now they rode

  Between the files of moody men?

  Some sudden consciousness they brook,

  Or dread the sequel. That night’s blood

  Disturbed even Mosby’s brotherhood.

  The flagging horses stumbled at roots,

  Floundered in mires, or clinked the stones;

  No rider spake except aside;

  But the wounded cramped in the ambulance,

  It was horror to hear their groans—

  Jerked along in the woodland ride,

  While Mosby’s clan their revery hide.

  The Hospital Steward—even he—

  Who on the sleeper kept his glance,

  Was changed; late bright-black beard and eye

  Looked now hearse-black; his heavy heart,

  Like his fagged mare, no more could dance;

  His grape was now a raisin dry:

  ’Tis Mosby’s homily—Man must die.

  The amber sunset flushed the camp

  As on the hill their eyes they fed;

  The pickets dumb looks at the wagon dart;

  A handkerchief waves from the bannered tent—

  As white, alas! the face of the dead:

  Who shall the withering news impart?

  The bullet of Mosby goes through heart to heart!

  They buried him where the lone ones lie

  (Lone sentries shot on midnight post)—

  A green-wood grave-yard hid from ken,

  Where sweet-fern flings an odor nigh—

  Yet held in fear for the gleaming ghost!

  Though the bride should see threescore and ten,

  She will dream of Mosby and his men.

  Now halt the verse, and turn aside—

  The cypress falls athwart the way;

  No joy remains for bard to sing;

  And heaviest dole of all is this,

  That other hearts shall be as gay

  As hers that now no more shall spring:

  To Mosby-land the dirges cling.

  LEE IN THE CAPITOL

  Lee in the Capitol x

  (April, 1866)

  HARD pressed by numbers in his strait,

  Rebellion’s soldier-chief no more contends—

  Feels that the hour is come of Fate,

  Lays down one sword, and widened warfare ends.

  The captain who fierce armies led

  Becomes a quiet seminary’s head—

  Poor as his privates, earns his bread.

  In studious cares and aims engrossed,

  Strives to forget Stuart and Stonewall dead—

  Comrades and cause, station and riches lost,

  And all the ills that flock when fortune’s fled.

  No word he breathes of vain lament,

  Mute to reproach, nor hears applause—

  His doom accepts, perforce content,

  And acquiesces in asserted laws;

  Secluded now would pass his life,

  And leave to time the sequel of the strife.

  But missives from the Senators ran;

  Not that they now would gaze upon a swordless foe,

  And power made powerless and brought low:

  Reasons of state, ’tis claimed, require the man.

  Demurring not, promptly he comes

  By ways which show the blackened homes,

  And—last—the seat no more his own,

  But Honor’s; patriot grave-yards fill

  The forfeit slopes of that patrician hill,

  And fling a shroud on Arlington.

  The oaks ancestral all are low;

  No more from the porch his glance shall go

  Ranging the varied landscape o’er,

  Far as the looming Dome—no more.

  One look he gives, then turns aside,

  Solace he summons from his pride:

  “So be it! They await me now

  Who wrought this stinging overthrow;

  They wait me; not as on the day

  Of Pope’s impelled retreat in disarray—

  By me impelled—when toward yon Dome

  The clouds of war came rolling home.”

  The burst, the bitterness was spent,

  The heart-burst bitterly turbulent,

  And on he fared.

  In nearness now

  He marks the Capitol—a show

  Lifted in amplitude, and set

  With standards flushed with the glow of Richmond yet;

  Trees and green terraces sleep below.

  Through the clear air, in sunny light,

  The marble dazes—a temple white.

  Intrepid soldier! had his blade been drawn

  For yon starred flag, never as now

  Bid to the Senate-house had he gone,

  But freely, and in pageant borne,

  As when brave numbers without number, massed,

  Plumed the broad way, and pouring passed—

  Bannered, beflowered—between the shores

  Of faces, and the dinn’d huzzas,

  And balconies kindling at the sabre-flash,

  ’Mid roar of drums and guns, and cymbal-crash,

  While Grant and Sherman shone in blue—

  Close of the war and victory’s long review.

  Yet pride at hand still aidful swelled,

  And up the hard ascent he held.

  The meeting follows. In his mien

  The victor and the vanquished both are seen—

  All that he is, and what he late had been.

  Awhile, with curious eyes they scan

  The Chief who led invasion’s van—

  Allied by family to one,

  Founder of the Arch the Invader warred upon:

  Who looks at Lee must think of Washington;

  In pain must think, and hide the thought,

  So deep with grievous meaning it is fraught.

  Secession in her soldier shows

  Silent and patient; and they feel

  (Developed even in just success)

  Dim inklings of a hazy future steal;

  Their thoughts their questions well express:

  “Does the sad South still cherish hate?

  Freely will Southern men with Northern mate?

  The blacks—should we our arm withdraw,

  Would that betray them? some distrust your law.

  And how if foreign fleets should come—

  Would the South then drive her wedges home?”

  And more hereof. The Virginian sees—

  Replies to such anxieties.

  Discreet his answers run—appear

  Briefly straightforward, coldly clear.

  “If now,” the Senators, closing, say,

  “Aught else remain, speak out, we pray.”

  Hereat he paused; his better heart


  Strove strongly then; prompted a worthier part

  Than coldly to endure his doom.

  Speak out? Ay, speak, and for the brave,

  Who else no voice or proxy have;

  Frankly their spokesman here become,

  And the flushed North from her own victory save.

  That inspiration overrode—

  Hardly it quelled the galling load

  Of personal ill. The inner feud

  He, self-contained, a while withstood;

  They waiting. In his troubled eye

  Shadows from clouds unseen they spy;

  They could not mark within his breast

  The pang which pleading thought oppressed:

  He spoke, nor felt the bitterness die.

  “My word is given—it ties my sword;

  Even were banners still abroad,

  Never could I strive in arms again

  While you, as fit, that pledge retain.

  Our cause I followed, stood in field and gate—

  All’s over now, and now I follow Fate.

  But this is naught. A People call—

  A desolated land, and all

  The brood of ills that press so sore,

  The natural offspring of this civil war,

  Which ending not in fame, such as might rear

  Fitly its sculptured trophy here,

  Yields harvest large of doubt and dread

  To all who have the heart and head

  To feel and know. How shall I speak?

  Thoughts knot with thoughts, and utterance check.

  Before my eyes there swims a haze,

  Through mists departed comrades gaze—

  First to encourage, last that shall upbraid!

  How shall I speak? The South would fain

  Feel peace, have quiet law again—

  Replant the trees for homestead-shade.

  You ask if she recants: she yields.

  Nay, and would more; would blend anew,

  As the bones of the slain in her forests do,

  Bewailed alike by us and you.

  A voice comes out from those charnel-fields,

  A plaintive yet unheeded one:

  ‘Died all in vain? both sides undone?’

  Push not your triumph; do not urge

  Submissiveness beyond the verge.

  Intestine rancor would you bide,

  Nursing eleven sliding daggers in your side?

  Far from my thought to school or threat;

  I speak the things which hard beset.

  Where various hazards meet the eyes,

  To elect in magnanimity is wise.

  Reap victory’s fruit while sound the core;

  What sounder fruit than re-established law?

  I know your partial thoughts do press

  Solely on us for war’s unhappy stress;

  But weigh—consider—look at all,

  And broad anathema you’ll recall.

  The censor’s charge I’ll not repeat,

  That meddlers kindled the war’s white heat—

  Vain intermeddlers and malign,

  Both of the palm and of the pine;

  I waive the thought—which never can be rife—

  Common’s the crime in every civil strife:

  But this I feel, that North and South were driven

  By Fate to arms. For our unshriven,

  What thousands, truest souls, were tried—

  As never may any be again—

  All those who stemmed Secession’s pride,

  But at last were swept by the urgent tide

  Into the chasm. I know their pain.

  A story here may be applied:

  ‘In Moorish lands there lived a maid

  Brought to confess by vow the creed

  Of Christians. Fain would priests persuade

  That now she must approve by deed

  The faith she kept. “What deed?” she asked.

  “Your old sire leave, nor deem it sin,

  And come with us.” Still more they tasked

  The sad one: “If heaven you’d win—

  Far from the burning pit withdraw,

  Then must you learn to hate your kin,

  Yea, side against them—such the law,

  For Moor and Christian are at war.”

  “Then will I never quit my sire,

  But here with him through every trial go,

  Nor leave him though in flames below—

  God help me in his fire!” ’

  So in the South; vain every plea

  ’Gainst Nature’s strong fidelity;

  True to the home and to the heart,

  Throngs cast their lot with kith and kin,

  Foreboding, cleaved to the natural part—

  Was this the unforgivable sin?

  These noble spirits are yet yours to win.

  Shall the great North go Sylla’s way?

  Proscribe? prolong the evil day?

  Confirm the curse? infix the hate?

  In Union’s name forever alienate?

  From reason who can urge the plea—

  Freemen conquerors of the free?

  When blood returns to the shrunken vein,

  Shall the wound of the Nation bleed again?

  Well may the wars wan thought supply,

  And kill the kindling of the hopeful eye,

  Unless you do what even kings have done

  In leniency—unless you shun

  To copy Europe in her worst estate—

  Avoid the tyranny you reprobate.”

  He ceased. His earnestness unforeseen

  Moved, but not swayed their former mien;

  And they dismissed him. Forth he went

  Through vaulted walks in lengthened line

  Like porches erst upon the Palatine:

  Historic reveries their lesson lent,

  The Past her shadow through the Future sent.

  But no. Brave though the Soldier, grave his plea—

  Catching the light in the future’s skies,

  Instinct disowns each darkening prophecy:

  Faith in America never dies;

  Heaven shall the end ordained fulfill,

  We march with Providence cheery still.

  A MEDITATION

  A Meditation

  Attributed to a Northerner after attending the last of two

  funerals from the same homestead—those of a National and

  a Confederate officer (brothers), his kinsmen, who had died

  from the effects of wounds received in the closing battles

  HOW often in the years that close,

  When truce had stilled the sieging gun,

  The soldiers, mounting on their works,

  With mutual curious glance have run

  From face to face along the fronting show,

  And kinsman spied, or friend—even in a foe.

  What thoughts conflicting then were shared,

  While sacred tenderness perforce

  Welled from the heart and wet the eye;

  And something of a strange remorse

  Rebelled against the sanctioned sin of blood,

  And Christian wars of natural brotherhood.

  Then stirred the god within the breast—

  The witness that is man’s at birth;

  A deep misgiving undermined

  Each plea and subterfuge of earth;

  They felt in that rapt pause, with warning rife,

  Horror and anguish for the civil strife.

  Of North or South they recked not then,

  Warm passi
on cursed the cause of war:

  Can Africa pay back this blood

  Spilt on Potomac’s shore?

  Yet doubts, as pangs, were vain the strife to stay,

  And hands that fain had clasped again could slay.

  How frequent in the camp was seen

  The herald from the hostile one,

  A guest and frank companion there

  When the proud formal talk was done;

  The pipe of peace was smoked even ’mid the war,

  And fields in Mexico again fought o’er.

  In Western battle long they lay

  So near opposed in trench or pit,

  That foeman unto foeman called

  As men who screened in tavern sit:

  “You bravely fight” each to the other said—

  “Toss us a biscuit!” o’er the wall it sped.

  And pale on those same slopes, a boy—

  A stormer, bled in noon-day glare;

  No aid the Blue-coats then could bring,

  He cried to them who nearest were,

  And out there came ’mid howling shot and shell

  A daring foe who him befriended well.

  Mark the great Captains on both sides,

  The soldiers with the broad renown—

  They all were messmates on the Hudson’s marge,

  Beneath one roof they laid them down;

  And, free from hate in many an after pass,

  Strove as in school-boy rivalry of the class.

  A darker side there is; but doubt

  In Nature’s charity hovers there:

  If men for new agreement yearn,

  Then old upbraiding best forbear:

  “The South’s the sinner!” Well, so let it be;

  But shall the North sin worse, and stand the Pharisee?

  O, now that brave men yield the sword,

  Mine be the manful soldier-view;

  By how much more they boldly warred,

  By so much more is mercy due:

  When Vicksburg fell, and the moody files marched out,

  Silent the victors stood, scorning to raise a shout.

  NOTES

  Notes

  Note a

  The gloomy lull of the early part of the winter of 1860–1, seeming big with final disaster to our institutions, affected some minds that believed them to constitute one of the great hopes of mankind, much as the eclipse which came over the promise of the first French Revolution affected kindred natures, throwing them for the time into doubts and misgivings universal.