In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded,
(of that indescribable look,) Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains, Of skies so beauteous after a storm,
and at night the moon so unearthly bright, Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig
the trenches and gather the heaps, I dream, I dream, I dream.
Long have they pass'd, faces and trenches and fields,
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure,
or away from the fallen, Onward I sped at the time—
but now of their forms at night, I dream, I dream, I dream.
Spirit whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours!
Ere, departing, fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets;
Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, (yet onward ever unfaltering pressing;)
Spirit of many a solemn day, and many a savage scene!
Electric spirit!
That with muttering voice, through the war now closed, like a tireless phantom flitted,
Rousing the land with breath of flame, while you beat and beat the drum;
—Now, as the sound of the drum, hollow and harsh to the last, reverberates round me;
As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return, return from the battles;
While the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders;
While I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders;
While those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them, appearing in the distance, approach
and pass on, returning homeward, Moving with steady motion,
swaying to and fro, to the right and left, Evenly, lightly rising and falling, as the steps keep time:
—Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one day, but pale as death next day;
Touch my mouth, ere you depart— press my lips close!
Leave me your pulses of rage! bequeath them to me!
fill me with currents convulsive!
Let them scorch and blister out of my chants, when you are gone;
Let them identify you to the future, in these songs.
A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying,
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket,
Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.
Curious I halt and silent stand, Then with light fingers I from the face of
the nearest the first just lift the blanket; Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim,
with well-gray'd hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes?
Who are you my dear comrade?
Then to the second I step— and who are you my child and darling?
Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?
Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory;
Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face of the Christ himself,
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.
Long, too long America, Traveling roads all even and peaceful
you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,
But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling
with direst fate and recoiling not, And now to conceive and show to the world
what your children en-masse really are,
(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?)
Long, too long America, Traveling roads all even and peaceful
you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,
But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish,
advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,
And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are,
(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?)