Joaquin Miller's Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The monument, tipped with electric fire,
Blazed high in a halo of light below
My low cabin door in the hills that inspire;
And the dome of the Capitol gleamed like snow
In a glory of light, as higher and higher
This wondrous creation of man was sent
To challenge the lights of the firmament.

A tall man, tawny and spare as bone,
With battered old hat and with feet half bare,
With the air of a soldier that was all his own—
Aye, something more than a soldier's air—
Came clutching a staff, with a face like stone;
Limped in through my gate—and I thought to beg—
Tight clutching a staff, slow dragging a leg.

The bent new moon, like a simitar,
Kept peace in Heaven. All earth lay still.
Some sentinel stars stood watch afar,
Some crickets kept clanging along the hill,
As the tall, stern relic of blood and war
Limped in, and, with hand up to brow half raised,
Limped up, looked about, as one dazed or crazed.

[_]

In the early eighties I built a log cabin in the edge of Washington, to be more in touch with both sides of the Civil War as well as with the smaller republics. And then many noble people who had been ruined in the South were ill content to live in log cabins, as their slaves had lived. I wanted to teach that a log cabin can be made very comfortable, with content at hand.

132

His gaunt face pleading for food and rest,
His set lips white as a tale of shame,
His black coat tight to a shirtless breast,
His black eyes burning in mine-like flame;
But never a word from his set lips came
As he whipped in line his battered old leg,
And his knees made mouths, and as if to beg.

Aye! black were his eyes; but doubtful and dim
Their vision of beautiful earth, I think.
And I doubt if the distant, dear worlds to him
Were growing brighter as he neared the brink
Of dolorous seas where phantom ships swim.
For his face was as hard as the hard, thin hand
That clutched that staff like an iron band.

“Sir, I am a soldier!” The battered old hat
Stood up as he spake, like to one on parade—
Stood taller and braver as he spake out that—
And the tattered old coat, that was tightly laid
To the battered old breast, looked so trim thereat
That I knew the mouths of the battered old leg
That had opened wide were not made to beg.

“I have wandered and wandered this twenty year:
Searched up and down for my regiments.
Have they gone to that field where no foes appear?
Have they pitched in Heaven their cloud-white tents?
Or, tell me, my friend, shall I find them here
On the hill beyond, at the Soldiers' Home,
Where the weary soldiers have ceased to roam?

133

“Aye, I am a soldier and a brigadier;
Is this the way to the Soldiers' Home?
There is plenty and rest for us all, I hear,
And a bugler, bidding us cease to roam,
Rides over the hill all the livelong year—
Rides calling and calling the brave to come
And rest and rest in that Soldiers' Home.

“Is this, sir, the way? I wandered in here
Just as one oft will at the close of day.
Aye, I am a soldier and a brigadier!
Now, the Soldiers' Home, sir. Is this the way?
I have wandered and wandered this twenty year,
Seeking some trace of my regiments
Sabered and riddled and torn to rents.

“Aye, I am a soldier and a brigadier!
A battered old soldier in the dusk of his day;
But you don't seem to heed, or you don't seem to hear,
Though, meek as I may, I ask for the way
To the Soldiers' Home, which must be quite near,
While under your oaks, in your easy chair,
You sit and you sit, and you stare and you stare.

“What battle? What deeds did I do in the fight?
Why, sir, I have seen green fields turn as red
As yonder red town in that marvelous light!
Then the great blazing guns! Then the ghastly white dead—
But, tell me, I faint, I must cease to roam!
This battered leg aches! Then this sabered old head—
Is—is this the way to the Soldiers' Home?

134

“Why, I hear men say 't is a Paradise
On the green oak hills by the great red town;
That many old comrades shall meet my eyes;
That a tasseled young trooper rides up and rides down,
With bugle horn blowing to the still blue skies,
Rides calling and calling us to rest and to stay
In that Soldiers' Home. Sir, is this the way?

“My leg is so lame! Then this sabered old head—
Ah! pardon me, sir, I never complain;
But the road is so rough, as I just now said;
And then there is this something that troubles my brain.
It makes the light dance from yon Capitol's dome;
It makes the road dim as I doubtfully tread—
And—sir, is this the way to the Soldiers' Home?

“From the first to the last in that desperate war—
Why, I did my part. If I did not fall,
A hair's breadth measure of this skull-bone scar
Was all that was wanting; and then this ball—
But what cared I? Ah! better by far
Have a sabered old head and a shattered old knee
To the end, than not had the praise of Lee—

“What! What do I hear? No home there for me?
Why, I heard men say that the war was at end!
Oh, my head swims so; and I scarce can see!
But a soldier's a soldier, I think, my friend,
Wherever that soldier may chance to be!

135

And wherever a soldier may chance to roam,
Why, a Soldiers' Home is a soldier's home!”

He turned as to go; but he sank to the grass;
And I lifted my face to the firmament;
For I saw a sentinel white star pass,
Leading the way the old soldier went.
And the light shone bright from the Capitol's dome,
Ah, brighter from Washington's monument,
Lighting his way to the Soldiers' Home.

The Cabin, Washington, D. C.