Herman Melville- Complete Poems Read online

  Thy after shock, Manassas, share.

  Lyon

  Battle of Springfield, Missouri

  (August, 1861)

  SOME hearts there are of deeper sort,

  Prophetic, sad,

  Which yet for cause are trebly clad;

  Known death they fly on:

  This wizard-heart and heart-of-oak had Lyon.

  “They are more than twenty thousand strong,

  We less than five,

  Too few with such a host to strive.”

  “Such counsel, fie on!

  ’Tis battle, or ’tis shame;” and firm stood Lyon.

  “For help at need in vain we wait—

  Retreat or fight:

  Retreat the foe would take for flight,

  And each proud scion

  Feel more elate; the end must come,” said Lyon.

  By candlelight he wrote the will,

  And left his all

  To Her for whom ’twas not enough to fall;

  Loud neighed Orion

  Without the tent; drums beat; we marched with Lyon.

  The night-tramp done, we spied the Vale

  With guard-fires lit;

  Day broke, but trooping clouds made gloom of it:

  “A field to die on,”

  Presaged in his unfaltering heart, brave Lyon.

  We fought on the grass, we bled in the corn—

  Fate seemed malign;

  His horse the Leader led along the line—

  Star-browed Orion;

  Bitterly fearless, he rallied us there, brave Lyon.

  There came a sound like the slitting of air

  By a swift sharp sword—

  A rush of the sound; and the sleek chest broad

  Of black Orion

  Heaved, and was fixed; the dead mane waved toward Lyon.

  “General, you’re hurt—this sleet of balls!”

  He seemed half spent;

  With moody and bloody brow, he lowly bent:

  “The field to die on;

  But not—not yet; the day is long,” breathed Lyon.

  For a time becharmed there fell a lull

  In the heart of the fight;

  The tree-tops nod, the slain sleep light;

  Warm noon-winds sigh on,

  And thoughts which he never spake had Lyon.

  Texans and Indians trim for a charge:

  “Stand ready, men!

  Let them come close, right up, and then

  After the lead, the iron;

  Fire, and charge back!” So strength returned to Lyon.

  The Iowa men who held the van,

  Half drilled, were new

  To battle: “Some one lead us, then we’ll do,”

  Said Corporal Tryon:

  “Men! I will lead,” and a light glared in Lyon.

  On they came: they yelped, and fired;

  His spirit sped;

  We leveled right in, and the half-breeds fled,

  Nor stayed the iron,

  Nor captured the crimson corse of Lyon.

  This seer foresaw his soldier-doom,

  Yet willed the fight.

  He never turned; his only flight

  Was up to Zion,

  Where prophets now and armies greet pale Lyon.

  Ball’s Bluff

  A Reverie

  (October, 1861)

  ONE noonday, at my window in the town,

  I saw a sight—saddest that eyes can see—

  Young soldiers marching lustily

  Unto the wars,

  With fifes, and flags in mottoed pageantry;

  While all the porches, walks, and doors

  Were rich with ladies cheering royally.

  They moved like Juny morning on the wave,

  Their hearts were fresh as clover in its prime

  (It was the breezy summer time),

  Life throbbed so strong,

  How should they dream that Death in a rosy clime

  Would come to thin their shining throng?

  Youth feels immortal, like the gods sublime.

  Weeks passed; and at my window, leaving bed,

  By night I mused, of easeful sleep bereft,

  On those brave boys (Ah War! thy theft);

  Some marching feet

  Found pause at last by cliffs Potomac cleft;

  Wakeful I mused, while in the street

  Far footfalls died away till none were left.

  Dupont’s Round Fight

  (November, 1861)

  IN time and measure perfect moves

  All Art whose aim is sure;

  Evolving rhyme and stars divine

  Have rules, and they endure.

  Nor less the Fleet that warred for Right,

  And, warring so, prevailed,

  In geometric beauty curved,

  And in an orbit sailed.

  The rebel at Port Royal felt

  The Unity overawe,

  And rued the spell. A type was here,

  And victory of LAW.

  The Stone Fleet b

  An Old Sailor’s Lament

  (December, 1861)

  I HAVE a feeling for those ships,

  Each worn and ancient one,

  With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam:

  Ay, it was unkindly done.

  But so they serve the Obsolete—

  Even so, Stone Fleet!

  You’ll say I’m doting; do but think

  I scudded round the Horn in one—

  The Tenedos, a glorious

  Good old craft as ever run—

  Sunk (how all unmeet!)

  With the Old Stone Fleet.

  An India ship of fame was she,

  Spices and shawls and fans she bore;

  A whaler when her wrinkles came—

  Turned off! till, spent and poor,

  Her bones were sold (escheat)!

  Ah! Stone Fleet.

  Four were erst patrician keels

  (Names attest what families be),

  The Kensington, and Richmond too,

  Leonidas, and Lee:

  But now they have their seat

  With the Old Stone Fleet.

  To scuttle them—a pirate deed—

  Sack them, and dismast;

  They sunk so slow, they died so hard,

  But gurgling dropped at last.

  Their ghosts in gales repeat

  Woe’s us, Stone Fleet!

  And all for naught. The waters pass—

  Currents will have their way;

  Nature is nobody’s ally; ’tis well;

  The harbor is bettered—will stay.

  A failure, and complete,

  Was your Old Stone Fleet.

  Donelson

  (February, 1862)

  THE bitter cup

  Of that hard countermand

  Which gave the Envoys up,

  Still was wormwood in the mouth,

  And clouds involved the land,

  When, pelted by sleet in the icy street,

  About the bulletin-board a band

  Of eager, anxious people met,

  And every wakeful heart was set

  On latest news from West or South.

  “No seeing here,” cries one—“don’t crowd”—

  “You tall man, pray you, read aloud.”

  IMPORTANT.

  We learn that General Grant,

  Mar
ching from Henry overland,

  And joined by a force up the Cumberland sent

  (Some thirty thousand the command),

  On Wednesday a good position won—

  Began the siege of Donelson.

  This stronghold crowns a river-bluff,

  A good broad mile of leveled top;

  Inland the ground rolls off

  Deep-gorged, and rocky, and broken up—

  A wilderness of trees and brush.

  The spaded summit shows the roods

  Of fixed intrenchments in their hush;

  Breast-works and rifle-pits in woods

  Perplex the base.—

  The welcome weather

  Is clear and mild; ’tis much like May.

  The ancient boughs that lace together

  Along the stream, and hang far forth,

  Strange with green mistletoe, betray

  A dreamy contrast to the North.

  Our troops are full of spirits—say

  The siege won’t prove a creeping one.

  They purpose not the lingering stay

  Of old beleaguerers; not that way;

  But, full of vim from Western prairies won,

  They’ll make, ere long, a dash at Donelson.

  Washed by the storm till the paper grew

  Every shade of a streaky blue,

  That bulletin stood. The next day brought

  A second.

  LATER FROM THE FORT.

  Grant’s investment is complete—

  A semicircular one.

  Both wings the Cumberland’s margin meet,

  Then, backward curving, clasp the rebel seat.

  On Wednesday this good work was done;

  But of the doers some lie prone.

  Each wood, each hill, each glen was fought for;

  The bold inclosing line we wrought for

  Flamed with sharpshooters. Each cliff cost

  A limb or life. But back we forced

  Reserves and all; made good our hold;

  And so we rest.

  Events unfold.

  On Thursday added ground was won,

  A long bold steep: we near the Den.

  Later the foe came shouting down

  In sortie, which was quelled; and then

  We stormed them on their left.

  A chilly change in the afternoon;

  The sky, late clear, is now bereft

  Of sun. Last night the ground froze hard—

  Rings to the enemy as they run

  Within their works. A ramrod bites

  The lip it meets. The cold incites

  To swinging of arms with brisk rebound.

  Smart blows ’gainst lusty chests resound.

  Along the outer line we ward

  A crackle of skirmishing goes on.

  Our lads creep round on hand and knee,

  They fight from behind each trunk and stone;

  And sometimes, flying for refuge, one

  Finds ’tis an enemy shares the tree.

  Some scores are maimed by boughs shot off

  In the glades by the Fort’s big gun.

  We mourn the loss of Colonel Morrison,

  Killed while cheering his regiment on.

  Their far sharpshooters try our stuff;

  And ours return them puff for puff:

  ’Tis diamond-cutting-diamond work.

  Woe on the rebel cannoneer

  Who shows his head. Our fellows lurk

  Like Indians that waylay the deer

  By the wild salt-spring.—The sky is dun,

  Foredooming the fall of Donelson.

  Stern weather is all unwonted here.

  The people of the country own

  We brought it. Yea, the earnest North

  Has elementally issued forth

  To storm this Donelson.

  FURTHER.

  A yelling rout

  Of ragamuffins broke profuse

  To-day from out the Fort.

  Sole uniform they wore, a sort

  Of patch, or white badge (as you choose)

  Upon the arm. But leading these,

  Or mingling, were men of face

  And bearing of patrician race,

  Splendid in courage and gold lace—

  The officers. Before the breeze

  Made by their charge, down went our line;

  But, rallying, charged back in force,

  And broke the sally; yet with loss.

  This on the left; upon the right

  Meanwhile there was an answering fight;

  Assailants and assailed reversed.

  The charge too upward, and not down—

  Up a steep ridge-side, toward its crown,

  A strong redoubt. But they who first

  Gained the fort’s base, and marked the trees

  Felled, heaped in horned perplexities,

  And shagged with brush; and swarming there

  Fierce wasps whose sting was present death—

  They faltered, drawing bated breath,

  And felt it was in vain to dare;

  Yet still, perforce, returned the ball,

  Firing into the tangled wall

  Till ordered to come down. They came;

  But left some comrades in their fame,

  Red on the ridge in icy wreath

  And hanging gardens of cold Death.

  But not quite unavenged these fell;

  Our ranks once out of range, a blast

  Of shrapnel and quick shell

  Burst on the rebel horde, still massed,

  Scattering them pell-mell.

  (This fighting—judging what we read—

  Both charge and countercharge,

  Would seem but Thursday’s told at large,

  Before in brief reported.—Ed.)

  Night closed in about the Den

  Murky and lowering. Ere long, chill rains.

  A night not soon to be forgot,

  Reviving old rheumatic pains

  And longings for a cot.

  No blankets, overcoats, or tents.

  Coats thrown aside on the warm march here—

  We looked not then for changeful cheer;

  Tents, coats, and blankets too much care.

  No fires; a fire a mark presents;

  Near by, the trees show bullet-dents.

  Rations were eaten cold and raw.

  The men well soaked, came snow; and more—

  A midnight sally. Small sleeping done—

  But such is war;

  No matter, we’ll have Fort Donelson.

  “Ugh! ugh!

  ’Twill drag along—drag along,”

  Growled a cross patriot in the throng,

  His battered umbrella like an ambulance-cover

  Riddled with bullet-holes, spattered all over.

  “Hurrah for Grant!” cried a stripling shrill;

  Three urchins joined him with a will,

  And some of taller stature cheered.

  Meantime a Copperhead passed; he sneered.

  “Win or lose,” he pausing said,

  “Caps fly the same; all boys, mere boys;

  Any thing to make a noise.

  Like to see the list of the dead;

  These ‘craven Southerners’ hold out;

  Ay, ay, they’ll give you many a bout.”

  “We’ll beat in the end, sir,”

  Firmly said one in staid rebuke,

  A solid merchant, square and stout.

  “And do you think it? that way tend, sir?”

  Asked the lean Copperhead, with a look />
  Of splenetic pity. “Yes, I do.”

  His yellow death’s head the croaker shook:

  “The country’s ruined, that I know.”

  A shower of broken ice and snow,

  In lieu of words, confuted him;

  They saw him hustled round the corner go,

  And each by-stander said—Well suited him.

  Next day another crowd was seen

  In the dark weather’s sleety spleen.

  Bald-headed to the storm came out

  A man, who, ’mid a joyous shout,

  Silently posted this brief sheet:

  GLORIOUS VICTORY OF THE FLEET!

  FRIDAY’S GREAT EVENT!

  THE ENEMY’S WATER-BATTERIES BEAT!

  WE SILENCED EVERY GUN!

  THE OLD COMMODORE’S COMPLIMENTS SENT

  PLUMP INTO DONELSON!

  “Well, well, go on!” exclaimed the crowd

  To him who thus much read aloud.

  “That’s all,” he said. “What! nothing more?”

  “Enough for a cheer, though—hip, hurrah!”

  “But here’s old Baldy come again”—

  “More news!”—And now a different strain.

  (Our own reporter a dispatch compiles,

  As best he may, from varied sources.)

  Large re-enforcements have arrived—

  Munitions, men, and horses—

  For Grant, and all debarked, with stores.

  The enemy’s field-works extend six miles—

  The gate still hid; so well contrived.

  Yesterday stung us; frozen shores

  Snow-clad, and through the drear defiles

  And over the desolate ridges blew

  A Lapland wind.

  The main affair

  Was a good two hours’ steady fight

  Between our gun-boats and the Fort.

  The Louisville’s wheel was smashed outright.

  A hundred-and-twenty-eight-pound ball

  Came planet-like through a starboard port,

  Killing three men, and wounding all