 | Western windows and other poems |  |
172
HONORS OF WAR.
Wails of slow music move along the street,
Before the slow march of a myriad feet
Whose mournful echoes come;
Banners are muffled, hiding all their sight
Of sacred stars—the century's dearest light—
And, muffled, throbs the drum.
Before the slow march of a myriad feet
Whose mournful echoes come;
Banners are muffled, hiding all their sight
Of sacred stars—the century's dearest light—
And, muffled, throbs the drum.
Proud is the hearse our Mother gives her son,
On the red altar laid her earliest one!
Wrapp'd in her holiest pall
He goes: her household guardians follow him,
Eyes with their new heroic tears are dim;
The stern to-morrows call!
On the red altar laid her earliest one!
Wrapp'd in her holiest pall
He goes: her household guardians follow him,
Eyes with their new heroic tears are dim;
The stern to-morrows call!
Well might the youth who saw his coffin'd face,
Lying in state within the proudest place,
Long for a lot so high:
He was the first to leap the treacherous wall;
First in the arms of Death and Fame to fall—
To live because to die!
Lying in state within the proudest place,
Long for a lot so high:
He was the first to leap the treacherous wall;
First in the arms of Death and Fame to fall—
To live because to die!
173
Pass on, with wails of music, moving slow,
Thy dark dead-march, O Mother dress'd in woe!
Lo, many another way
Shall blacken after, many a sacred head
Brightly thy stars shall fold, alive though dead,
From many a funeral day!
Thy dark dead-march, O Mother dress'd in woe!
Lo, many another way
Shall blacken after, many a sacred head
Brightly thy stars shall fold, alive though dead,
From many a funeral day!
Weep, but grow stronger in thy suffering:
From their dead brothers' graves thy sons shall bring
New life of love for thee:
The long death-marches herald, slow or fast,
The resurrection-hour of men at last
New-born in Liberty!
From their dead brothers' graves thy sons shall bring
New life of love for thee:
The long death-marches herald, slow or fast,
The resurrection-hour of men at last
New-born in Liberty!
Washington, May, 1861.
| Western windows and other poems | |