As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering
oak-flame,
Musing on long-pass'd war-scenes--of the
countless buried unknown soldiers,
Of the vacant names,
as unindented air's and sea's--the unreturn'd,
The brief
truce after battle, with grim burial-squads, and the deep-fill'd
trenches
Of gather'd dead from all America, North, South,
East, West, whence they came up,
From wooded Maine,
New-England's farms, from fertile Pennsylvania, Illinois,
Ohio,
From the measureless West, Virginia, the South, the
Carolinas, Texas
(Even here in my room-shadows and
half-lights in the noiseless flickering flames,
Again I
see the stalwart ranks on-filing, rising--I hear the
rhythmic tramp of the armies);
You million unwrit names
all, all--you dark bequest from all the war,
A special
verse for you--a flash of duty long neglected--your mystic
roll strangely gather'd here,
Each name recall'd by me
from out the darkness and death's ashes,
Henceforth to
be, deep, deep within my heart recording, for many a future
year,
Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North
or South,
Embalm'd with love in this twilight song. |
