ASHES OF SOLDIERS

Ashes of soldiers South or North, As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought, The war resumes, again to my sense your shapes, And again the advance of the armies.

Noiseless as mists and vapours, From their graves in the trenches ascending, From cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee, From every point of the compa.s.s out of the countless graves, In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos or threes or single ones they come, And silently gather round me.

Now sound no note O trumpeters, Not at the head of my cavalry parading on spirited horses, With sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines by their thighs (ah my brave hors.e.m.e.n!

My handsome tan-faced hors.e.m.e.n! what life, what joy and pride, With all the perils were yours).

Nor you drummers, neither at reveille at dawn, Nor the long roll alarming the camp, nor even the m.u.f.fled beat for a burial, Nothing from you this time O drummers bearing my warlike drums.

But aside from these and the marts of wealth and the crowded promenade, Admitting around me comrades close unseen by the rest and voiceless, The slain elate and alive again, the dust and debris alive, I chant this chant of my silent soul in the name of all dead soldiers.

Faces so pale with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet, Draw close, but speak not.

Phantoms of countless lost, Invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions, Follow me ever--desert me not while I live.

Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living--sweet are the musical voices sounding, But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes.

Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone, But love is not over--and what love, O comrades!

Perfume from battlefields rising, up from the foetor arising.

Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love, Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers, Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride.

Perfume all--make all wholesome, Make these ashes to nourish and blossom, O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.

Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain, That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew, For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North.

PENSIVE ON HER DEAD GAZING

Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All, Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields gazing (As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd), As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd, Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my sons, lose not an atom, And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood, And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly impalpable, And all you essences of soil and growth, and you my rivers' depths, And you mountain sides, and the woods where my dear children's blood trickling redden'd, And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees, My dead absorb or South or North--my young men's bodies absorb, and their precious, precious blood, Which holding in trust for me faithfully back again give me many a year hence, In unseen essence and odour of surface and gra.s.s, centuries hence, In blowing airs from the fields back again give me my darlings, give my immortal heroes, Exhale me them centuries hence, breathe me their breath, let not an atom be lost, O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!

Exhale them perennial sweet death, years centuries hence.

III

POEMS OF AMERICA

I HEAR AMERICA SINGING

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

PIONEERS! O PIONEERS!

Come my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready, Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?

Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths, So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?

Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?

We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind, We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labour and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the pa.s.ses, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling, We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within, We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we, From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus, From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas, Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein'd, All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless restless race!

O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!

O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress, Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress (bend your heads all), Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impa.s.sive, weapon'd mistress, Pioneers! O pioneers!

See my children, resolute children, By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter, Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging, Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on the compact ranks, With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd, Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on!

Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?

Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd, Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world, Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat, Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life's involv'd and varied pageants, All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work, All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, Pioneers! O pioneers!