Herman Melville – The Complete Collection

Chapter 19

As they searched for the fallen, the dawn grew chill;

They lay in the dew: "Ah! hurt much, Mink?

And--yes--the Colonel!" Dead! but so calm

That death seemed nothing--even death,

The thing we deem every thing heart can think;

Amid wilding roses that shed their balm,

Careless of Mosby he lay--in a charm!

The Major took him by the Hand--

Into the friendly clasp it bled

(A ball through heart and hand he rued):

"Good-by" and gazed with humid glance;

Then in a hollow revery said

"The weakness thing is lustihood;

But Mosby--" and he checked his mood.

"Where's the advance?--cut off, by heaven!

Come, Surgeon, how with your wounded there"

"The ambulance will carry all"

"Well, get them in; we go to camp.

Seven prisoners gone? for the rest have care"

Then to himself, "This grief is gall;

That Mosby!--I'll cast a silver ball!"

"Ho!" turning--"Captain Cloud, you mind

The place where the escort went--so shady?

Go search every closet low and high,

And barn, and bin, and hidden bower--

Every covert--find that lady!

And yet I may misjudge her--ay,

Women (like Mosby) mystify.

"We'll see. Ay, Captain, go--with speed!

Surround and search; each living thing

Secure; that done, await us where

We last turned off. Stay! fire the cage

If the birds be flown." By the cross-road spring

The bands rejoined; no words; the glare

Told all. Had Mosby plotted there?

The weary troop that wended now--

Hardly it seemed the same that pricked

Forth to the forest from the camp:

Foot-sore horses, jaded men;

Every backbone felt as nicked,

Each eye dim as a sick-room lamp,

All faces stamped with Mosby's stamp.

In order due the Major rode--

Chaplain and Surgeon on either hand;

A riderless horse a n***o led;

In a wagon the blanketed sleeper went;

Then the ambulance with the bleeding band;

And, an emptied oat-bag on each head,

Went Mosby's men, and marked the dead.

What gloomed them? what so cast them down,

And changed the cheer that late they took,

As double-guarded now they rode

Between the files of moody men?

Some sudden consciousness they brook,

Or dread the sequel. That night's blood

Disturbed even Mosby's brotherhood.

The flagging horses stumbled at roots,

Floundered in mires, or clinked the stones;

No rider spake except aside;

But the wounded cramped in the ambulance,

It was horror to hear their groans--

Jerked along in the woodland ride,

While Mosby's clan their revery hide.

The Hospital Steward--even he--

Who on the sleeper kept his glance,

Was changed; late bright-black beard and eye

Looked now hearse-black; his heavy heart,

Like his fagged mare, no more could dance;

His grape was now a raisin dry:

'Tis Mosby's homily--_Man must die_.

The amber sunset flushed the camp

As on the hill their eyes they fed;

The pickets dumb looks at the wagon dart;

A handkerchief waves from the bannered tent--

As white, alas! the face of the dead:

Who shall the withering news impart?

The bullet of Mosby goes through heart to heart!

They buried him where the lone ones lie

(Lone sentries shot on midnight post)--

A green-wood grave-yard hid from ken,

Where sweet-fern flings an odor nigh--

Yet held in fear for the gleaming ghost!

Though the bride should see threescore and ten,

She will dream of Mosby and his men.

Now halt the verse, and turn aside--

The cypress falls athwart the way;

No joy remains for bard to sing;

And heaviest dole of all is this,

That other hearts shall be as gay

As hers that now no more shall spring:

To Mosby-land the dirges cling.

Lee in the Capitol.

Lee in the Capitol.[24]

(April, 1866.)

Hard pressed by numbers in his strait,

Rebellion's soldier-chief no more contends--

Feels that the hour is come of Fate,

Lays down one sword, and widened warfare ends.

The captain who fierce armies led

Becomes a quiet seminary's head--

Poor as his privates, earns his bread.

In studious cares and aims engrossed,

Strives to forget Stuart and Stonewall dead--

Comrades and cause, station and riches lost,

And all the ills that flock when fortune's fled.

No word he breathes of vain lament,

Mute to reproach, nor hears applause--

His doom accepts, perforce content,

And acquiesces in asserted laws;

Secluded now would pass his life,

And leave to time the sequel of the strife.

But missives from the Senators ran;

Not that they now would gaze upon a swordless foe,

And power made powerless and brought low:

Reasons of state, 'tis claimed, require the man.

Demurring not, promptly he comes

By ways which show the blackened homes,

And--last--the seat no more his own,

But Honor's; patriot grave-yards fill

The forfeit slopes of that patrician hill,

And fling a shroud on Arlington.

The oaks ancestral all are low;

No more from the porch his glance shall go

Ranging the varied landscape o'er,

Far as the looming Dome--no more.

One look he gives, then turns aside,

Solace he summons from his pride:

"So be it! They await me now

Who wrought this stinging overthrow;

They wait me; not as on the day

Of Pope's impelled retreat in disarray--

By me impelled--when toward yon Dome

The clouds of war came rolling home"

The burst, the bitterness was spent,

The heart-burst bitterly turbulent,

And on he fared.

In nearness now

He marks the Capitol--a show

Lifted in amplitude, and set

With standards flushed with a glow of Richmond yet;

Trees and green terraces sleep below.

Through the clear air, in sunny light,

The marble dazes--a temple white.

Intrepid soldier! had his blade been drawn

For yon stirred flag, never as now

Bid to the Senate-house had he gone,

But freely, and in pageant borne,

As when brave numbers without number, massed,

Plumed the broad way, and pouring passed--

Bannered, beflowered--between the shores

Of faces, and the dinn'd huzzas,

And balconies kindling at the sabre-flash,

'Mid roar of drums and guns, and cymbal-crash,

While Grant and Sherman shone in blue--

Close of the war and victory's long review.

Yet pride at hand still aidful swelled,

And up the hard ascent he held.

The meeting follows. In his mien

The victor and the vanquished both are seen--

All that he is, and what he late had been.

Awhile, with curious eyes they scan

The Chief who led invasion's van--

Allied by family to one,

Founder of the Arch the Invader warred upon:

Who looks at Lee must think of Washington;

In pain must think, and hide the thought,

So deep with grievous meaning it is fraught.

Secession in her soldier shows

Silent and patient; and they feel

(Developed even in just success)

Dim inklings of a hazy future steal;

Their thoughts their questions well express:

"Does the sad South still cherish hate?

Freely will Southen men with Northern mate?

The blacks--should we our arm withdraw,

Would that betray them? some distrust your law.

And how if foreign fleets should come--

Would the South then drive her wedges home"

And more hereof. The Virginian sees--

Replies to such anxieties.

Discreet his answers run--appear

Briefly straightforward, coldly clear.

"If now," the Senators, closing, say,

"Aught else remain, speak out, we pray"

Hereat he paused; his better heart

Strove strongly then; prompted a worthier part

Than coldly to endure his doom.

Speak out? Ay, speak, and for the brave,

Who else no voice or proxy have;

Frankly their spokesman here become,

And the flushed North from her own victory save.

That inspiration overrode--

Hardly it quelled the galling load

Of personal ill. The inner feud

He, self-contained, a while withstood;

They waiting. In his troubled eye

Shadows from clouds unseen they spy;

They could not mark within his breast

The pang which pleading thought oppressed:

He spoke, nor felt the bitterness die.

"My word is given--it ties my sword;

Even were banners still abroad,

Never could I strive in arms again

While you, as fit, that pledge retain.

Our cause I followed, stood in field and gate--

All's over now, and now I follow Fate.

But this is naught. A People call--

A desolted land, and all

The brood of ills that press so sore,

The natural offspring of this civil war,

Which ending not in fame, such as might rear

Fitly its sculptured trophy here,

Yields harvest large of doubt and dread

To all who have the heart and head

To feel and know. How shall I speak?

Thoughts knot with thoughts, and utterance check.

Before my eyes there swims a haze,

Through mists departed comrades gaze--

First to encourage, last that shall upbraid!

How shall I speak? The South would fain

Feel peace, have quiet law again--

Replant the trees for homestead-shade.

You ask if she recants: she yields.

Nay, and would more; would blend anew,

As the bones of the slain in her forests do,

Bewailed alike by us and you.

A voice comes out from these charnel-fields,

A plaintive yet unheeded one:

_'Died all in vain? both sides undone'_

Push not your triumph; do not urge

Submissiveness beyond the verge.

Intestine rancor would you bide,

Nursing eleven sliding daggers in your side?

"Far from my thought to school or threat;

I speak the things which hard beset.

Where various hazards meet the eyes,

To elect in magnanimity is wise.

Reap victory's fruit while sound the core;

What sounder fruit than re-established law?

I know your partial thoughts do press

Solely on us for war's unhappy stress;

But weigh--consider--look at all,

And broad anathema you'll recall.

The censor's charge I'll not repeat,

The meddlers kindled the war's white heat--

Vain intermeddlers and malign,

Both of the palm and of the pine;

I waive the thought--which never can be rife--

Common's the crime in every civil strife:

But this I feel, that North and South were driven

By Fate to arms. For our unshriven,

What thousands, truest souls, were tried--

As never may any be again--

All those who stemmed Secession's pride,

But at last were swept by the urgent tide

Into the chasm. I know their pain.

A story here may be applied:

'In Moorish lands there lived a maid

Brought to confess by vow the creed

Of Christians. Fain would priests persuade

That now she must approve by deed

The faith she kept. "What dead?" she asked.

"Your old sire leave, nor deem it sin,

And come with us." Still more they tasked

The sad one: "If heaven you'd win--

Far from the burning pit withdraw,

Then must you learn to hate your kin,

Yea, side against them--such the law,

For Moor and Christian are at war"

"Then will I never quit my sire,

But here with him through every trial go,

Nor leave him though in flames below--

God help me in his fire!"

So in the South; vain every plea

'Gainst Nature's strong fidelity;

True to the home and to the heart,

Throngs cast their lot with kith and kin,

Foreboding, cleaved to the natural part--

Was this the unforgivable sin?

These noble spirits are yet yours to win.

Shall the great North go Sylla's way?

Proscribe? prolong the evil day?

Confirm the curse? infix the hate?

In Unions name forever alienate?

"From reason who can urge the plea--

Freemen conquerors of the free?

When blood returns to the shrunken vein,

Shall the wound of the Nation bleed again?

Well may the wars wan thought supply,

And kill the kindling of the hopeful eye,

Unless you do what even kings have done

In leniency--unless you shun

To copy Europe in her worst estate--

Avoid the tyranny you reprobate."

He ceased. His earnestness unforeseen

Moved, but not swayed their former mien;

And they dismissed him. Forth he went

Through vaulted walks in lengthened line

Like porches erst upon the Palatine:

Historic reveries their lesson lent,

The Past her shadow through the Future sent.

But no. Brave though the Soldier, grave his plea--

Catching the light in the future's skies,

Instinct disowns each darkening prophecy:

Faith in America never dies;

Heaven shall the end ordained fulfill,

We march with Providence cheery still.