Complete Poetical Works - Bret Harte 2 стр.

     Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands,
       And of armed men the hum;
     Lo! a nation's hosts have gathered
       Round the quick alarming drum,
           Saying, "Come,
           Freemen, come!
     Ere your heritage be wasted," said the quick alarming drum.

     "Let me of my heart take counsel:
       War is not of life the sum;
     Who shall stay and reap the harvest
       When the autumn days shall come?"
           But the drum
           Echoed, "Come!
     Death shall reap the braver harvest," said the solemn-sounding drum.

     "But when won the coming battle,
       What of profit springs therefrom?
     What if conquest, subjugation,
       Even greater ills become?"
           But the drum
           Answered, "Come!
     You must do the sum to prove it," said the Yankee answering drum.

     "What if, 'mid the cannons' thunder,
       Whistling shot and bursting bomb,
     When my brothers fall around me,
       Should my heart grow cold and numb?"
           But the drum
           Answered, "Come!
     Better there in death united, than in life a recreant.Come!"

     Thus they answered,hoping, fearing,
       Some in faith, and doubting some,
     Till a trumpet-voice proclaiming,
       Said, "My chosen people, come!"
           Then the drum,
           Lo! was dumb,
     For the great heart of the nation, throbbing, answered, "Lord, we come!"

     Not ours, where battle smoke upcurls,
       And battle dews lie wet,
     To meet the charge that treason hurls
       By sword and bayonet.

     Not ours to guide the fatal scythe
       The fleshless Reaper wields;
     The harvest moon looks calmly down
       Upon our peaceful fields.

     The long grass dimples on the hill,
       The pines sing by the sea,
     And Plenty, from her golden horn,
       Is pouring far and free.

     O brothers by the farther sea!
       Think still our faith is warm;
     The same bright flag above us waves
       That swathed our baby form.

     The same red blood that dyes your fields
       Here throbs in patriot pride,
     The blood that flowed when Lander fell,
       And Baker's crimson tide.

     And thus apart our hearts keep time
       With every pulse ye feel,
     And Mercy's ringing gold shall chime
       With Valor's clashing steel.

     Came the relief. "What, sentry, ho!
     How passed the night through thy long waking?"
     "Cold, cheerless, dark,as may befit
     The hour before the dawn is breaking."

     "No sight? no sound?"  "No; nothing save
     The plover from the marshes calling,
     And in yon western sky, about
     An hour ago, a star was falling."

     "A star?  There's nothing strange in that."
     "No, nothing; but, above the thicket,
     Somehow it seemed to me that God
     Somewhere had just relieved a picket."

     "Who comes?"  The sentry's warning cry
       Rings sharply on the evening air:
     Who comes?  The challenge: no reply,
       Yet something motions there.

     A woman, by those graceful folds;
       A soldier, by that martial tread:
     "Advance three paces.  Halt! until
       Thy name and rank be said."

     "My name?  Her name, in ancient song,
       Who fearless from Olympus came:
     Look on me!  Mortals know me best
       In battle and in flame."

     "Enough! I know that clarion voice;
       I know that gleaming eye and helm,
     Those crimson lips,and in their dew
       The best blood of the realm.

     "The young, the brave, the good and wise,
       Have fallen in thy curst embrace:
     The juices of the grapes of wrath
       Still stain thy guilty face.

     "My brother lies in yonder field,
       Face downward to the quiet grass:
     Go back! he cannot see thee now;
       But here thou shalt not pass."

     A crack upon the evening air,
       A wakened echo from the hill:
     The watchdog on the distant shore
       Gives mouth, and all is still.

     The sentry with his brother lies
       Face downward on the quiet grass;
     And by him, in the pale moonshine,
       A shadow seems to pass.

     No lance or warlike shield it bears:
       A helmet in its pitying hands
     Brings water from the nearest brook,
       To meet his last demands.

     Can this be she of haughty mien,
       The goddess of the sword and shield?
     Ah, yes!  The Grecian poet's myth
       Sways still each battlefield.

     For not alone that rugged War
       Some grace or charm from Beauty gains;
     But, when the goddess' work is done,
       The woman's still remains.

     This is the reed the dead musician dropped,
       With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden;
     The prompt allegro of its music stopped,
       Its melodies unbidden.

     But who shall finish the unfinished strain,
       Or wake the instrument to awe and wonder,
     And bid the slender barrel breathe again,
       An organ-pipe of thunder!

     His pen! what humbler memories cling about
       Its golden curves! what shapes and laughing graces
     Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out
       In smiles and courtly phrases?

     The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung;
       The word of cheer, with recognition in it;
     The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung
       The golden gift within it.

     But all in vain the enchanter's wand we wave:
       No stroke of ours recalls his magic vision:
     The incantation that its power gave
       Sleeps with the dead magician.

     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 reverie, 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 thoughtperhaps 'twas 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 brandished;
     No marksave 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 gravesfor 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 length'ning line,
     And I knew that one who was kin of mine
     Had come; and I spakeand lo! that sign
         Awakened me from my slumber.

     There is peace in the swamp where the Copperhead sleeps,
     Where the waters are stagnant, the white vapor creeps,
     Where the musk of Magnolia hangs thick in the air,
     And the lilies' phylacteries broaden in prayer.
     There is peace in the swamp, though the quiet is death,
     Though the mist is miasma, the upas-tree's breath,
     Though no echo awakes to the cooing of doves,
     There is peace: yes, the peace that the Copperhead loves.

     Go seek him: he coils in the ooze and the drip,
     Like a thong idly flung from the slave-driver's whip;
     But beware the false footstep,the stumble that brings
     A deadlier lash than the overseer swings.
     Never arrow so true, never bullet so dread,
     As the straight steady stroke of that hammer-shaped head;
     Whether slave or proud planter, who braves that dull crest,
     Woe to him who shall trouble the Copperhead's rest!

     Then why waste your labors, brave hearts and strong men,
     In tracking a trail to the Copperhead's den?
     Lay your axe to the cypress, hew open the shade
     To the free sky and sunshine Jehovah has made;
     Let the breeze of the North sweep the vapors away,
     Till the stagnant lake ripples, the freed waters play;
     And then to your heel can you righteously doom
     The Copperhead born of its shadow and gloom!

     Last night, above the whistling wind,
       I heard the welcome rain,
     A fusillade upon the roof,
       A tattoo on the pane:
     The keyhole piped; the chimney-top
       A warlike trumpet blew;
     Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife,
       A softer voice stole through.

     "Give thanks, O brothers!" said the voice,
       "That He who sent the rains
     Hath spared your fields the scarlet dew
       That drips from patriot veins:
     I've seen the grass on Eastern graves
       In brighter verdure rise;
     But, oh! the rain that gave it life
       Sprang first from human eyes.

     "I come to wash away no stain
       Upon your wasted lea;
     I raise no banners, save the ones
       The forest waves to me:
     Upon the mountain side, where Spring
       Her farthest picket sets,
     My reveille awakes a host
       Of grassy bayonets.

     "I visit every humble roof;
       I mingle with the low:
     Only upon the highest peaks
       My blessings fall in snow;
     Until, in tricklings of the stream
       And drainings of the lea,
     My unspent bounty comes at last
       To mingle with the sea."

     And thus all night, above the wind,
       I heard the welcome rain,
     A fusillade upon the roof,
       A tattoo on the pane:
     The keyhole piped; the chimney-top
       A warlike trumpet blew;
     But, mingling with these sounds of strife,
       This hymn of peace stole through.