3. Beat! beat! drums!-Blow! bugles! blow! 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! RISE, O DAYS, FROM YOUR FATHOMLESS DEEPS. I. RISE, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep ! Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devoured what the earth gave me; Long I roamed the woods of the north-long I watched Niagara pouring; I travelled the prairies over, and slept on their breastI crossed the Nevadas, I crossed the plateaus ; I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sailed out to sea. I sailed through the storm, I was refreshed by the storm; I watched with joy the threatening maws of the waves; I marked the white combs where they careered so high, curling over; I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds ; Saw from below what arose and mounted (O superb! O wild as my heart, and powerful!) Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellowed after the lightning; Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast amid the din they chased each other across the sky. -These, and such as these, I, elate, saw-saw with wonder, yet pensive and masterful; All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me; Yet there with my soul I fed-I fed content, supercilious. 2. 'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me! Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill; Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us. Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities; Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring; Torrents of men (sources and rills of the Northwest, are you indeed inexhaustible ?)— What, to pavements and homesteads here-what were those storms of the mountains and sea? What, to passions I witness around me to-day, was the sea risen, Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds? Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage; Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing frontCincinnati, Chicago, unchained. -What was that swell I saw on the ocean? Behold what comes here! How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes! How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the flashes of lightning! How Democracy, with desperate vengeful port, strides on, shown through the dark by those flashes of lightning! (Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark, In a lull of the deafening confusion.) 3. Thunder on stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke! And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities! Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good; My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong nutriment. -Long had I walked my cities, my country-roads, through farms, only half satisfied; One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawled on the ground before me, Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing low. -The cities I loved so well I abandoned and left-I sped to the certainties suitable to me; Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's dauntlessness, I refreshed myself with it only, I could relish it only; I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire—on the water and air I waited long. ---But now I no longer wait—I am fully satisfied—I am glutted; I have witnessed the true lightning-I have witnessed my cities electric; I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise. Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds, No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea. A LETTER FROM CAMP. I. "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." 2. Lo, 'tis 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 trellised 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. 3. 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 signed; 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-" Gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital, At present low, but will soon be better." 4. 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 just-grown daughter speaks through her sobs; The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismayed ;) "See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better." 5. 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 dressed in black; By day her meals untouched-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! VIGIL ON THE FIELD. VIGIL Strange I kept on the field one night. When you, my son and my comrade, dropped at my side that day, One look I but gave, which your dear eyes returned with a look I shall never forget; One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reached up as you lay on the ground. Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle; Till, late in the night relieved, to the place at last again I made my way; |
