A Second Review of the Grand Army
by Bret Harte�(1836�1902) |
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I READ last night of the Grand Review
In Washington's
chiefest avenue,�
Two Hundred Thousand men in blue,
I
think they said was the number,�
Till I seemed to hear
their trampling feet,
The bugle blast and the drum's
quick beat,
The clatter of hoofs in the stony street,
The cheers of people who came to greet,
And the thousand
details that to repeat
Would only my verse encumber,�
Till I fell in a revery, sad and sweet,
And then to a
fitful slumber.
When, lo! in a vision I seemed to
stand
In the lonely Capitol. On each hand
Far
stretched the portico; dim and grand
Its columns ranged,
like a martial band
Of sheeted spectres whom some command
Had called to a last reviewing.
And the streets of the
city were white and bare,
No footfall echoed across the
square;
But out of the misty midnight air
I heard in
the distance a trumpet blare,
And the wandering
night-winds seemed to bear
The sound of a far tattooing.
Then I held my breath with fear and dread;
For into
the square, with a brazen tread,
There rode a figure
whose stately head
O'erlooked the review that
morning,
That never bowed from its firm-set seat
When
the living column passed its feet,
Yet now rode steadily
up the street
To the phantom bugle's warning:
Till
it reached the Capitol square, and wheeled,
And there in
the moonlight stood revealed
A well-known form that in
state and field
Had led our patriot sires;
Whose face
was turned to the sleeping camp,
Afar through the river's
fog and damp,
That showed no flicker, nor waning lamp,
Nor wasted bivouac fires.
And I saw a phantom army
come,
With never a sound of fife or drum,
But keeping
time to a throbbing hum
Of wailing and lamentation:
The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill,
Of Gettysburg and
Chancellorsville,
The men whose wasted figures fill
The patriot graves of the nation.
And there came the
nameless dead,�the men
Who perished in fever-swamp and
fen,
The slowly starved of the prison-pen.
And,
marching beside the others,
Came the dusky martyrs of
Pillow's fight,
With limbs enfranchised and bearing
bright:
I thought�perhaps 't was the pale moonlight�
They looked as white as their brothers!
And so all
night marched the Nation's dead,
With never a banner
above them spread,
Nor a badge, nor a motto brandish�d;
No mark�save the bare uncovered head
Of the silent bronze
Reviewer;
With never an arch save the vaulted sky;
With never a flower save those that lie
On the distant
graves�for love could buy
No gift that was purer or
truer.
So all night long swept the strange array;
So all night long, till the morning gray,
I watched for
one who had passed away,
With a reverent awe and wonder,�
Till a blue cap waved in the lengthening line,
And I knew
that one who was kin of mine
Had come; and I spake�and
lo! that sign
Awakened me from my slumber. |
By Bret Harte�(1836�1902)
Listed July 12, 2014 |
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