The Bivouac Of The Dead
By Theodore O'Hara (1820 � 1867) |
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The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's
last tattoo;
No more on life's parade shall meet
That
brave and fallen few.
On fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards, with
solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.
No rumor of
the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;
No
troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left
behind;
No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's
dream alarms;
No braying horn, nor screaming fife,
At
dawn shall call to arms.
Their shivered swords are
red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed;
Their
haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial
shroud.
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The
red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle
gashed,
Are free from anguish now.
The neighing
troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are
past;
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal
Shall
thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that never more
may feel
The rapture of the fight.
Like the fierce
northern hurricane
That sweeps his great plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the
serried foe.
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break
o'er the field beneath,
Knew well the watchword of that
day
Was "Victory or death."
Long had the doubtful
conflict raged
O'er all that stricken plain,
For never
fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the
gory tide;
Not long, our stout old chieftain knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.
'T was in that
hour his stern command
Called to a martyr's grave
The
flower of his beloved land,
The nation's flag to save.
By rivers of their father's gore
His first-born laurels
grew,
And well he deemed the sons would pour
Their
lives for glory too.
Full many a norther's breath has
swept
O'er Angostura's plain--
And long the pitying
sky has wept
Above the mouldering slain.
The raven's
scream, or eagle's flight,
Or shepherd's pensive lay,
Alone awakes each sullen height
That frowned o'er that
dread fray.
Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
Ye
must not slumber there,
Where stranger steps and tongues
resound
Along the heedless air;
Your own proud land's
heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave;
She claims
from war his richest spoil--
The ashes of her brave.
So, 'neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory
field,
Borne to a Spartan mother's breast,
On many a
bloody shield;
The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles
sadly on them here,
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes' sepulchre.
Rest on, embalmed and sainted
dead,
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep
here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall
your glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,
Or
Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly
sleeps.
Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone,
In
deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanished age hath
flown
The story how ye fell;
Nor wreck, nor change,
nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory's light
That gilds your
deathless tomb. |
By Theodore O'Hara (1820 � 1867)
Listed
July 11, 2012 |
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Note: (February 22-23, 1847)
This poem was written to commemorate the bringing home
of the
bodies of the Kentucky soldiers who fell at
Buena Vista, and their
burial at Frankfort at the
cost of the State.
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