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
vapours,
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 reveill� 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
d�bris 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 battlefields rising, up from the
foetor 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. |
