Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865», страница 14

Flor perceived now that the old scow was being borne along with a strong, steady-motion, unlike its first fitful drift; it brought her heart to her throat,—for just so, it seemed to her, would a torrent set that was hastening to plunge over the side of the earth. She remembered, with a start of cold horror, Zoë's dim tradition of a fall far off in the river. She had never seen one, but Zoë had stamped its terrors deeply. Still down in the gloom itself she could see nothing but the slowly lightening sky overhead, the drowning stars, the rosy flush upon the dark old tips feathering against a dewy grayness that was like powdered light. But gradually she heard what conquered all necessity of seeing,—heard a continuous murmurous sound that filled all the air and grew to be a sullen roar. It seemed like the dread murmur from the world beyond the grave, the roar in earthly ears of that awful silence. Flor's quick senses were not long at fault. She seized her poles, and with all her might endeavored to push in towards the side and out of the main channel. Straws would have availed nearly as much; far faster than she went in shore she drove down stream. It was getting to be morning twilight all below; a soft, damp wind was blowing in her face; in the distance she could see, like the changing outline of a phantom, a low cloud of mist, wavering now on this side, now on that, but forever rising and falling and hovering before her. She knew what it was. If she could only bring her boat to that bank,—precipice though it was,—there must be some broken piece to catch by! She toiled with all her puny strength, and the great stream laughed at her and roared on. Suddenly, what her wildest efforts failed to do, the river did itself,—dividing into twenty currents for its plunge, some one of the eddies caught the old scow in its teeth and sent it whirling along the inmost current of all, close upon the shore. The rock, whose cleft the river had primevally chosen, was here more broken than above; various edges protruded maddeningly as Flor skimmed by almost within reach. Twice she plucked at them and missed. One flat shelf, over which the thin water slipped like a sheet of molten glass, remained and caught her eye; she was no longer cold or stiff with terror, but frantic to save herself; it was the only chance, the last; shooting by, she sprang forward, pole in hand, touched it, fell, caught a ledge with her hands while the fierce flow of the water lifted her off her feet, scrambled up breathlessly and was safe, while the scow swept past, two flashing furlongs, poised a few moments after on the brink of the fall, went majestically over, and came up to the surface below in pieces.

Flor wrung her hands in dismay. She had not understood her situation before. There was no escape now, it seemed,—not even to return. Nothing was possible save starving to death on this ledge,—and after that, the vultures. She sat there for a little while in a kind of stupor. She saw the light falling slowly down, as it had fallen millions of mornings before, and bringing out all blue and purple shadows on the wet old rock; she saw the current ever hurrying by to join the tumult of the cataract; she heard the deep, sweet music of the waters like a noisy dream in her ears. With the shock of her wreck coming at the instant when she fancied herself so swiftly and securely speeding on towards safety and freedom, she felt indifferent to all succeeding fate. What if she did die? who was she? what was she? nothing but an atom. What odds, after all? The solution of her soliloquy was, that, before the first ray of sunshine reached down and smote the dark torrent into glancing emerald, she began to feel ravenously hungry, and found it a great deal of odds, after all. She rose to her feet, grasping cautiously at the slippery rock, and searched about her. There was another ledge close at hand, corresponding to the one on which she stood; she crept forward and transferred herself, with an infinitude of tremors, from this to that; there was a foothold just beyond; she gained it. Up and down and all along there were other projections, just enough for a hand, a foot: a wet and terrible pathway; to follow it might be death, to neglect it certainly was. What had she danced for all her days, if it had not made her sure and nimble footed? Under her the foam leaped up, the spectral mist crept like an icy breath, the spray sprinkled all about her, swinging herself along from ledge to ledge, from jag to jag, like a spider on a viewless thread. Now she hung just above the fall, looking down and longing to leap, with nothing but a shining laurel-branch between her and the boiling pits below; now, at last, a green hillside sloped to the water's edge, sparkling across all its solitude with ten thousand drops of dew, a broad, blue morning heaven bent and shone overhead, and having raced the river in the moment's light-heartedness of glee at her good hap, she sat some rods below, looking up at the fall and dipping her bleeding and blistered feet in and out of the cool and rapid-running river.

What was there now to do? To go back,—to go back,—not if she were torn by lions! That was as impossible for her as to reverse a fiat of creation. God had said to her,—"Let there be light." How could she, then, return to darkness? To keep along on land,—it might be weeks before she reached the quarter of the gunboats,—she would be seized as a stray, and lodged in jail, and sold for whom it might concern. But with her scow gone to pieces, what other thing was there to do? So she sat looking up at the spurting cascades, with their horns of silver leaping into the light, and all the clear brown and beryl rush of their crystalline waters, and longing for her scow. If she had so much as the bit of bark on which the squirrels crossed the river! She looked again about her for relief. The rainbow at the foot of all the falls, in its luminous, steady arch, seemed a bridge solid enough for even her little black feet, had one side of the stream been any surer haven than the other; and as she sought out its bases, her eye lighted on something curiously like a weed swaying up and down. She picked her way to it, and found it wedged where she could loosen it,—two planks still nailed to a stout crossbar. She floated it, and held it fast a moment. What if she trusted to it,—with neither sail nor rudder, as before, but now with neither oar nor pole? On shore, for her there were only ravening wolves; waterfalls were no worse than they, and perhaps there were no more waterfalls. She stepped gingerly upon the fragment, seated and balanced herself, paddled with her two hands, and thought to slip away. In spite of everything, a kind of exultation bubbled up within her,—she felt as if she were defying Destiny itself.

When, however, Flor intrusted herself to the stream, the stream received the trust and seemed inclined to keep it; for there she stayed: the planks tilted up and down, the water washed over her, but there were the falls at nearly the same distance as when she embarked, and there they stayed as well. The water, too, was no more fresh and sweet, but had a salt and brackish taste. The sun was nearly overhead, and she was in an agony of apprehension before she saw the falls slide slowly back, and in one of a fresh succession of wonders, understanding nothing of it, she found herself, with a strange sucking heave under her, falling on the ebb-tide as before she had fallen on the mountain-current.

Gentle undulations of friendly hills seemed now to creep by; and through their openings she caught glimpses of cotton-fields. There was a wicked relish in her thoughts, as she pictured the dusky laborers at work there, and she gliding by unseen in the idle sunshine. She passed again between high banks of red earth, scored by land-slides, with springs oozing out half-way up, and now and then clad in a mantle of vivid growth and color,—a thicket of blossoming pomegranate darkening on a sunburst of creamy dogwood, or a wild fig-tree sending its roots down to drink, with a sweet-scented and gorgeous epiphyte weaving a flowery enchantment about-them, and making the whole atmosphere reel with richness. But all this verdant beauty, the lush luxuriance of grape-vines, of dark myrtle-masses, of swinging curtains of convolvuli almost brushing her head as she floated by,—nothing of this was new to Flor, nothing precious; she could have given all the beauty of earth and heaven for a crust of bread just then. She thought of the plantation with a dry sob, but would not turn her face. She could not move much, indeed, her position was so ticklish; hardy wretch as she was, she had already become faint and famished: she contrived, resting her arms on the crossbar, at last, to lay her head upon them; and thus lying, perpetually bathed by the soft, warm dip and rise of the water, the pain of hunger left her, and she saw the world waft by like a dream.

Slowly the evening began to fall. Flor marked the bright waters dim and put on a bloomy purple along which rosy and golden shadows wandered and mingled, stars looked timidly up from beneath her, and just over her shoulder, as if all the daylight left had gathered in that one little curved line, lay the suspicion of the tenderest new moon, like some boatman of the skies essaying to encourage her with his apparition as he floated lightly down the west. Flor paid heed to the spectacle in its splendid quiet but briefly; her eyes were fixed on a great trail of passion-flowers that blew out a gale of sweetness from their broad blue disks. She had reached that hanging branch, lavishly blossoming here on the wilderness, and had hung upon the tide beneath it for a while, till she found herself gently moving back again; and now she swung slightly to and fro, neither making nor losing headway, and, fond of such sensuous delights, half content to lie thus and do nothing but breathe the delicious odor stealing towards her, and resting in broad airy swaths, it seemed, upon the bosom of the stream around her. By-and-by, when the great blue star, that last night at the zenith seemed to suspend all the tented drapery of the sky, hung there large and lovely again, Flor, gazing up at it with a confused sense of passion-flowers in heaven, half woke to find herself sliding down stream at last in earnest. Her brain was very light and giddy; all her powers of perception were momentarily heightened; she took notice of her seesawing upon the ebb and flow, and understood that washing up and down the shores, a mere piece of driftwood, life would long have left her ere she attained the river's mouth, if she were not stranded by the way. The branch of a cedar-tree came dallying by with that, brought down from above the falls; she half rose, and caught at it, and fell back, but she kept hold of it by just a twig, and, fatigued with the exertion, drowsed away awhile. Waking again, after a little, her fingers still fast upon it, she drew it over, fixed it upright as she could, and spread her petticoat about it at the risk of utter capsize. The soft sweet wind beat against the sail as happily as if it had been Cleopatra's weft of purple silk, and carried her on, while she lay back, one arm around her jury-mast, and half indifferently unconscious again. She had meant, on reaching the gunboats,—ah, inconceivable bliss!—to win her way with her feet; with willowy graces and eloquent pantomime, to have danced along the deck and into favor trippingly: now, if she should have strength enough left to fall on her knees, it would be strange. She clung to the crossbar in a little while from blind habit; the rest of her body seemed light and powerless. She was neither asleep nor awake now, suffering nothing save occasionally a wild flutter of hope which was joy and anguish together; but all things began mingling in her mind in a species of delirium while she gave them attention, afterwards slid by blank of all meaning but beauty. The lofty cypresses on the edge above loomed into obelisks, and stood like shafts of ebony against a glow of sunrise that stirred down deep in the night; dew-clouds, it seemed, hung on them, and lifted and lowered when their veils of moss waved here and there; the glistering laurel-leaves shivered in a network of light and shade like imprisoned spirits troubling to be free; but where the great magnolias stood were massed the white wings of angels fanning forth fragrances untold and heavenly, and one by one slowly revealing themselves in the dawn of another day. It seemed as if great and awful spirits must be leading this little being into light and freedom.

So the river lapsed along, and the sun blazed, and a torture of thirst came and went as it had come and gone before; and sometimes swiftly, sometimes slowly, the veering winds and the pendulous tides carried the wreck and its burden along. Flor had planned, before she started, that all her progress should be made by night; by day she would haul up among the tall rushes or under the lee of some stump or rock, and so escape strange sail and spying eyes. But there had been no need of this, for no other boat had passed up or down the river since she sailed. If there had, she could no more have feared it. She stole by a high deserted garden, the paling broken half away. A tardy almond-tree was stirring its tower of bloom in the sunshine up there; oranges were reddening on an overhanging bough, whose wreaths of snowy sweetness made the air a passionate delight; a luscious fruit dropped, with all its royal gloss, into the river beside her, and she could not put out a hand to catch it. She saw now all that passed, but no longer with any afterthoughts of reference to herself; so sights might slip across the retina of a dead man's eye; her identity seemed fading from her, as from some substance on the point of dissolution into the wide universe. She felt like one who, under an æsthetic influence, seems to himself careering through mid-air, conscious only of motion and vanishing forms. Cultured uplands and thick woods peopled with melodies all stole by, mere picture; the long snake of the river crept through green meadowy shores haunted by the cluck and clutter of the marsh-hen; from a bluff of the bank broke a blaze of fire and a yelping roar, and something slapped and skipped along the water,—a ball from a Rebel battery to bring the strange craft to,—others followed and danced like demons through the hissing tide that rocked under her and plunged up and down, tilting and turning and half drowning the wreck. Flor looked at them all with wide eyes, at the battery and at the bluff, and went by without any more sensation than that dazed quiet in which, at the time, she would have gone down to death with the soft waters laying their warm weight on her head, not even thanking Fortune that in giving her a slippery plank gave her something to elude either canister or catapult. Occasionally she felt a pain, a strange parched pain; it burned awhile, and left her once more oblivious. She slept a little, by fits and starts; sometimes the very stillness stirred her. She listened and heard the turtle plumping down into the stream, now and then the little fishes leaping and plashing, the eels slipping in and out among the reeds and sedges at the side; far away in the broad marshes, that, bathed in dim vapor, now lay all about her, the cry of a bittern boomed; she saw a pair of herons flapping inland over the gray swell of the water; there were some great purple phantoms, darkly imagined monsters; looming near at hand:—all the phantasmagoria drifted by,—and then, caught in the currents playing forever by noon or night round the low edges of sand-bars and islets, she was sweeping out to sea like chaff.

The sun was going down, a mere redness in the curdling fleecy haze; the weltering seas rose and fell in broad sheets of burnished silver, the monotone of their music followed them, a cool salt wind blew over them and freshened them for storm. Flor rose on her arm and looked back,—the breeze roused her; pain and fear and hope rose with her and looked back too. Eager, feverish, fierce, recollecting and desiring and imprecating, her dry lips parted for a shriek that the dryer throat had at first no power to utter. In such wild longing pangs it seemed her heart would burst as it beat. The low land, the great gunboats, all were receding, and she was washing out to sea, a weed.—Well, then, wash!

The stem of the boat rose lightly, riding over the rollers; the sturdy arms kept flashing stroke; the great gulfs gaped for a life, no matter whose; night would darken down on them soon;—pull with a will!

They heard her voice as they drew near: she had found it again, singing, as the swan sings his death-song, loud and clear,—singing to herself some song of her old happy dancing-days, while the spray powdered over her and one broad wave lifted and tossed her on to the next,—no note of sorrow in the song, and no regret.

It was but brief delay beside her; then they pulled back, the wind piping behind them,—nearer to that purple cloud with its black plume of smoke, up the side and over; all the white faces crowding round her, pallid blots; one dark face smiling on her like Sarp's; friendship and succor everywhere about her; and over her, blowing out broadly upon the stormy wind, that flag whose starry shadow nowhere shelters a slave.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Summer, 1865

 
Dead is the roll of the drums,
        And the distant thunders die,
        They fade in the far-off sky;
And a lovely summer comes,
        Like the smile of Him on high.
 
 
Lulled the storm and the onset.
        Earth lies in a sunny swoon;
        Stiller splendor of noon,
Softer glory of sunset,
        Milder starlight and moon!
 
 
For the kindly Seasons love us;
        They smile over trench and clod,
(Where we left the bravest of us,)—
        There's a brighter green of the sod,
And a holier calm above us
        In the blesséd Blue of God.
 
 
The roar and ravage were vain;
        And Nature, that never yields,
Is busy with sun and rain
At her old sweet work again
        On the lonely battle-fields.
 
 
How the tall white daisies grow
        Where the grim artillery rolled!
(Was it only a moon ago?
        It seems a century old,)—
 
 
And the bee hums in the clover,
        As the pleasant June comes on;
Aye, the wars are all over,—
        But our good Father is gone.
 
 
There was tumbling of traitor fort,
        Flaming of traitor fleet,—
Lighting of city and port,
        Clasping in square and street.
 
 
There was thunder of mine and gun,
        Cheering by mast and tent,—
When—his dread work all done,
And his high fame full won—
        Died the Good President.
 
 
In his quiet chair he sate,
        Pure of malice or guile,
Stainless of fear or hate,—
        And there played a pleasant smile
On the rough and careworn face;
        For his heart was all the while
On means of mercy and grace.
 
 
The brave old Flag drooped o'er him,
        (A fold in the hard hand lay,)—
        He looked, perchance, on the play,—
But the scene was a shadow before him,
        For his thoughts were far away.
 
 
'Twas but the morn, (yon fearful
        Death-shade, gloomy and vast,
        Lifting slowly at last,)
        His household heard him say,
"'Tis long since I've been so cheerful,
        So light of heart as to-day."
 
 
'Twas dying, the long dread clang,—
        But, or ever the blesséd ray
        Of peace could brighten to-day,
        Murder stood by the way,—
Treason struck home his fang!
One throb—and, without a pang,
        That pure soul passed away.
 
 
Idle, in this our blindness,
        To marvel we cannot see
        Wherefore such things should be,
Or to question Infinite Kindness
        Of this or of that Decree,
 
 
Or to fear lest Nature bungle,
        That in certain ways she errs:
The cobra in the jungle,
                The crotalus in the sod,
        Evil and good are hers;—
        Murderers and torturers!
                Ye, too, were made by God.
 
 
All slowly heaven is nighing,
        Needs that offence must come;
Ever the Old Wrong dying
Will sting, in the death-coil lying,
        And hiss till its fork be dumb.
 
 
But dare deny no further,
        Black-hearted, brazen-cheeked!
Ye on whose lips yon murther
        These fifty moons hath reeked,—
 
 
From the wretched scenic dunce,
        Long a-hungered to rouse
A Nation's heart for the nonce,—
(Hugging his hell, so that once
        He might yet bring down the house!)—
 
 
From the commons, gross and simple,
        Of a blind and bloody land,
                (Long fed on venomous lies!)—
To the horrid heart and hand
                That sumless murder dyes,—
The hand that drew the wimple
                Over those cruel eyes.
 
 
Pass on,—your deeds are done,
Forever sets your sun;
        Vainly ye lived or died,
'Gainst Freedom and the Laws,—
And your memory and your cause
        Shall haunt o'er the trophied tide
 
 
Like some Pirate Caravel floating
        Dreadful, adrift—whose crew
From her yard-arms dangle rotting,—
        The old Horror of the blue.
 
 
Avoid ye,—let the morrow
        Sentence or mercy see.
Pass to your place: our sorrow
Is all too dark to borrow
        One shade from such as ye.
 
 
But if one, with merciful eyes,
From the forgiving skies
        Looks, 'mid our gloom, to see
Yonder where Murder lies,
Stripped of the woman guise,
        And waiting the doom,—'tis he.
 
 
Kindly Spirit!—Ah, when did treason
        Bid such a generous nature cease,
Mild by temper and strong by reason,
        But ever leaning to love and peace?
 
 
A head how sober! a heart how spacious!
        A manner equal with high or low;
Rough, but gentle; uncouth, but gracious;
        And still inclining to lips of woe.
 
 
Patient when saddest, calm when sternest,
        Grieved when rigid for justice' sake;
Given to jest, yet ever in earnest,
        If aught of right or truth were at stake.
 
 
Simple of heart, yet shrewd therewith;
        Slow to resolve, but firm to hold;
Still with parable and with myth
        Seasoning truth, like Them of old;
Aptest humor and quaintest pith!
        (Still we smile o'er the tales he told.)
 
 
And if, sometimes, in saddest stress,
        That mind, over-meshed by fate,
        (Ringed round with treason and hate,
And guiding the State by guess,)
        Could doubt and could hesitate,—
Who, alas! had done less
        In the world's most deadly strait?
 
 
But how true to the Common Cause!
        Of his task how unweary!
How hard he worked, how good he was,
        How kindly and cheery!
 
 
How, while it marked redouble
        The howls and hisses and sneers,
That great heart bore our trouble
        Through all these terrible years,—
 
 
And, cooling passion with state,
        And ever counting the cost,
Kept the Twin World-Robbers in wait
        Till the time for their clutch was lost!
 
 
How much he cared for the State,
        How little for praise or pelf!
A man too simply great
        To scheme for his proper self.
 
 
But in mirth that strong heart rested
        From its strife with the false and violent,—
A jester!—So Henry jested,
        So jested William the Silent.
 
 
Orange, shocking the dull
        With careless conceit and quip,
Yet holding the dumb heart full
        With Holland's life on his lip!⁴
 
 
Navarre, bonhomme and pleasant,
        Pitying the poor man's lot,
Wishing that every peasant
        A chicken had in his pot;
 
 
Feeding the stubborn bourgeois,
        Though Paris still held out;
Holding the League in awe,
        But jolly with all about.
 
 
Out of an o'erflowed fulness
        Those deep hearts seemed too light,—
(And so 'twas, murder's dulness
        Was set with sullener spite.)
 
 
Yet whoso might pierce the guise
        Of mirth in the man we mourn
Would mark, and with grieved surprise,
        All the great soul had borne,
In the piteous lines, and the kind, sad eyes
        So dreadfully wearied and worn.
 
 
And we trusted (the last dread page
        Once turned of our Doomsday Scroll)
        To have seen him, sunny of soul,
In a cheery, grand old age.
 
 
But, Father, 'tis well with thee!
        And since ever, when God draws nigh,
Some grief for the good must be,
        'Twas well, even so to die,—
 
 
'Mid the thunder of Treason's fall,
        The yielding of haughty town,
The crashing of cruel wall,
        The trembling of tyrant crown!
 
 
The ringing of hearth and pavement
        To the clash of falling chains,—
The centuries of enslavement
        Dead, with their blood-bought gains!
 
 
And through trouble weary and long
        Well hadst thou seen the way,
Leaving the State so strong
        It did not reel for a day;
 
 
And even in death couldst give
        A token for Freedom's strife,—
A proof how republics live,
        And not by a single life,
 
 
But the Right Divine of man,
        And the many, trained to be free,—
And none, since the world began,
        Ever was mourned like thee.
 
 
Dost thou feel it, O noble Heart!
        (So grieved and so wronged below,)
From the rest wherein thou art?
Do they see it, those patient eyes?
Is there heed in the happy skies
        For tokens of world-wide woe?
 
 
The Land's great lamentations,
        The mighty mourning of cannon,
                The myriad flags half-mast,—
The late remorse of the nations,
        Grief from Volga to Shannon!
                (Now they know thee at last.)
 
 
How, from gray Niagara's shore
        To Canaveral's surfy shoal,—
From the rough Atlantic roar
        To the long Pacific roll,—
        For bereavement and for dole,
Every cottage wears its weed,
        White as thine own pure soul,
And black as the traitor deed!
 
 
How, under a nation's pall,
        The dust so dear in our sight
                To its home on the prairie passed,—
The leagues of funeral,
        The myriads, morn and night,
                Pressing to look their last!
 
 
Nor alone the State's Eclipse;
        But how tears in hard eyes gather,—
And on rough and bearded lips,
Of the regiments and the ships,—
        "Oh, our dear Father!"
 
 
And methinks of all the million
        That looked on the dark dead face,
'Neath its sable-plumed pavilion,
        The crone of a humbler race
Is saddest of all to think on,
        And the old swart lips that said,
Sobbing, "Abraham Lincoln!
        Oh, he is dead, he is dead!"
 
 
Hush! let our heavy souls
        To-day be glad; for agen
The stormy music swells and rolls
        Stirring the hearts of men.
 
 
And under the Nation's Dome,
        They've guarded so well and long,
Our boys come marching home,
        Two hundred thousand strong.
 
 
All in the pleasant month of May,
        With war-worn colors and drums,
Still, through the livelong summer's day,
        Regiment, regiment comes.
 
 
Like the tide, yesty and barmy,
        That sets on a wild lee-shore,
Surge the ranks of an army
        Never reviewed before!
 
 
Who shall look on the like agen,
        Or see such host of the brave?
A mighty River of marching men
                Rolls the Capital through,—
Rank on rank, and wave on wave,
                Of bayonet-crested blue!
 
 
How the chargers neigh and champ,
(Their riders weary of camp,)
        With curvet and with caracole!—
The cavalry comes with thundrous tramp,
        And the cannons heavily roll.
 
 
And ever, flowery and gay,
The Staff sweeps on in a spray
        Of tossing forelocks and manes;
But each bridle-arm has a weed
Of funeral, black as the steed
        That fiery Sheridan reins.
 
 
Grandest of mortal sights
        The sun-browned ranks to view,–
The Colors ragg'd in a hundred fights,
        And the dusty Frocks of Blue!
 
 
And all day, mile on mile,
With cheer, and waving, and smile,
The war-worn legions defile
        Where the nation's noblest stand;
And the Great Lieutenant looks on,
        With the Flower of a rescued Land,—
For the terrible work is done,
And the Good Fight is won
        For God and for Fatherland.
 
 
So, from the fields they win,
        Our men are marching home,
        A million are marching home!
To the cannon's thundering din,
        And banners on mast and dome,—
And the ships come sailing in
        With all their ensigns dight,
        As erst for a great sea-fight.
 
 
Let every color fly,
        Every pennon flaunt in pride;
Wave, Starry Flag, on high!
Float in the sunny sky,
        Stream o'er the stormy tide!
For every stripe of stainless hue,
And every star in the field of blue,
Ten thousand of the brave and true
        Have laid them down and died.
 
 
And in all our pride to-day
        We think, with a tender pain,
Of those so far away,
        They will not come home again.
 
 
And our boys had fondly thought,
        To-day, in marching by,
From the ground so dearly bought,
And the fields so bravely fought,
        To have met their Father's eye.
 
 
But they may not see him in place,
        Nor their ranks be seen of him;
We look for the well-known face,
        And the splendor is strangely dim.
 
 
Perished?—who was it said
        Our Leader had passed away?
Dead? Our President dead?—
        He has not died for a day!
 
 
We mourn for a little breath,
        Such as, late or soon, dust yields;
But the Dark Flower of Death
        Blooms in the fadeless fields.
 
 
We looked on a cold, still brow:
        But Lincoln could yet survive;
        He never was more alive,
Never nearer than now.
 
 
For the pleasant season found him,
        Guarded by faithful hands,
        In the fairest of Summer Lands:
With his own brave Staff around him,
        There our President stands.
 
 
There they are all at his side,
        The noble hearts and true,
        That did all men might do,—
Then slept, with their swords, and died.
 
 
Of little the storm has reft us
        But the brave and kindly clay
('Tis but dust where Lander left us,
        And but turf where Lyon lay).
 
 
There's Winthrop, true to the end,
        And Ellsworth of long ago,
        (First fair young head laid low!)
There 's Baker, the brave old friend,
        And Douglas, the friendly foe:
 
 
(Baker, that still stood up
        When 'twas death on either hand:
"'Tis a soldier's part to stoop,
        But the Senator must stand.")
 
 
The heroes gather and form:—
        There's Cameron, with his scars,
Sedgwick, of siege and storm,
        And Mitchell, that joined his stars.
 
 
Winthrop, of sword and pen,
        Wadsworth, with silver hair,
Mansfield, ruler of men,
        And brave McPherson are there.
 
 
Birney, who led so long,
        Abbott, born to command,
Elliott the bold, and Strong,
        Who fell on the hard-fought strand.
 
 
Lytle, soldier and bard,
        And the Ellets, sire and son,
Ransom, all grandly scarred,
And Redfield, no more on guard,
        (But Alatoona is won!)
 
 
Reno, of pure desert,
        Kearney, with heart of flame,
And Russell, that hid his hurt
        Till the final death-bolt came.
 
 
Terrill, dead where he fought,
        Wallace, that would not yield,
And Sumner, who vainly sought
        A grave on the foughten field
 
 
(But died ere the end he saw,
        With years and battles outworn).
There's Harmon of Kenesaw,
And Ulric Dahlgren, and Shaw,
        That slept with his Hope Forlorn.
 
 
Bayard, that knew not fear,
        (True as the knight of yore,)
And Putnam, and Paul Revere,
        Worthy the names they bore.
Allen, who died for others,
        Bryan, of gentle fame,
And the brave New-England brothers
        That have left us Lowell's name.
 
 
Home, at last, from the wars,—
        Stedman, the staunch and mild,
        And Janeway, our hero-child,
Home, with his fifteen scars!
 
 
There's Porter, ever in front,
        True son of a sea-king sire,
And Christian Foote, and Dupont
(Dupont, who led his ships
Rounding the first Ellipse
        Of thunder and of fire).
 
 
There's Ward, with his brave death-wounds,
        And Cummings, of spotless name,
And Smith, who hurtled his rounds
        When deck and hatch were aflame;
 
 
Wainwright, steadfast and true,
        Rodgers, of brave sea-blood,
And Craven, with ship and crew
        Sunk in the salt sea flood.
 
 
And, a little later to part,
        Our Captain, noble and dear—
        (Did they deem thee, then, austere?
Drayton!—O pure and kindly heart!
        Thine is the seaman's tear.)
 
 
All such,—and many another,
        (Ah, list how long to name!)
That stood like brother by brother,
        And died on the field of fame.
 
 
And around—(for there can cease
        This earthly trouble)—they throng,
The friends that had passed in peace,
        The foes that have seen their wrong.
 
 
(But, a little from the rest,
        With sad eyes looking down,
        And brows of softened frown,
With stern arms on the chest,
Are two, standing abreast,—
        Stonewall and Old John Brown.)
 
 
But the stainless and the true,
        These by their President stand,
To look on his last review,
        Or march with the old command.
 
 
And lo, from a thousand fields,
        From all the old battle-haunts,
A greater Army than Sherman wields,
        A grander Review than Grant's!
 
 
Gathered home from the grave,
        Risen from sun and rain,—
Rescued from wind and wave,
        Out of the stormy main,—
The Legions of our Brave
        Are all in their lines again!
 
 
Many a stout Corps that went,
Full-ranked, from camp and tent,
        And brought back a brigade;
Many a brave regiment,
        That mustered only a squad.
 
 
The lost battalions,
        That, when the fight went wrong,
Stood and died at their guns,—
        The stormers steady and strong,
 
 
With their best blood that bought
        Scarp, and ravelin, and wall,—
The companies that fought
        Till a corporal's guard was all.
 
 
Many a valiant crew,
        That passed in battle and wreck,—
Ah, so faithful and true!
        They died on the bloody deck,
They sank in the soundless blue.
 
 
All the loyal and bold
        That lay on a soldier's bier,—
        The stretchers borne to the rear,
The hammocks lowered to the hold.
 
 
The shattered wreck we hurried,
        In death-fight, from deck and port,—
The Blacks that Wagner buried,
        That died in the Bloody Fort!
 
 
Comrades of camp and mess,
        Left, as they lay, to die,
In the battle's sorest stress,
        When the storm of fight swept by:
They lay in the Wilderness,—
        Ah, where did they not lie?
 
 
In the tangled swamp they lay,
        They lay so still on the sward!—
They rolled in the sick-bay,
Moaning their lives away;—
        They flushed in the fevered ward.
 
 
They rotted in Libby yonder,
        They starved in the foul stockade,—
Hearing afar the thunder
        Of the Union cannonade!
 
 
But the old wounds all are healed,
        And the dungeoned limbs are free,—
The Blue Frocks rise from the field,
        The Blue Jackets out of the sea.
 
 
They've 'scaped from the torture-den,
        They've broken the bloody sod,
They're all come to life agen!—
The Third of a Million men
        That died for Thee and for God!
 
 
A tenderer green than May
        The Eternal Season wears,—
The blue of our summer's day
        Is dim and pallid to theirs,—
The Horror faded away,
        And 'twas heaven all unawares!
 
 
Tents on the Infinite Shore!
        Flags in the azuline sky,
Sails on the seas once more!
        To-day, in the heaven on high,
All under arms once more!
 
 
The troops are all in their lines,
        The guidons flutter and play;
But every bayonet shines,
        For all must march to-day.
 
 
What lofty pennons flaunt?
What mighty echoes haunt,
        As of great guns, o'er the main?
        Hark to the sound again!
The Congress is all-ataunt!
        The Cumberland's manned again!
 
 
All the ships and their men
        Are in line of battle to-day,—
All at quarters, as when
        Their last roll thundered away,—
All at their guns, as then,
        For the Fleet salutes to-day.
 
 
The armies, have broken camp
        On the vast and sunny plain,
        The drums are rolling again;
With steady, measured tramp,
        They're marching all again.
 
 
With alignment firm and solemn,
        Once again they form
In mighty square and column,—
        But never for charge and storm.
 
 
The Old Flag they died under
        Floats above them on the shore,
And on the great ships yonder
        The ensigns dip once more,—
And once again the thunder
        Of the thirty guns and four!
 
 
In solid platoons of steel,
        Under heaven's triumphal arch,
The long lines break and wheel;
        And the word is, "Forward, march!"
 
 
The colors ripple o'erhead,
        The drums roll up to the sky,
And with martial time and tread
        The regiments all pass by,—
The ranks of our faithful Dead,
        Meeting their President's eye.
 
 
With a soldier's quiet pride
        They smile o'er the perished pain,
        For their anguish was not vain,—
For thee, O Father, we died!
        And we did not die in vain.
 
 
March on, your last brave mile!
        Salute him, Star and Lace,
Form round him, rank and file,
        And look on the kind, rough face;
But the quaint and homely smile
        Has a glory and a grace
It never had known erewhile,—
        Never, in time and space.
 
 
Close round him, hearts of pride!
Press near him, side by side,—
        Our Father is not alone!
For the Holy Right ye died,
And Christ, the Crucified,
        Waits to welcome his own.