Ashes Of Soldiers
Again a verse for sake
of you,
You soldiers in the ranks--you Volunteers,
Who bravely fighting, silent fell,
To fill unmention'd graves.
ASHES of soldiers!
As I muse, retrospective, murmuring a chant in
thought,
Lo! the war resumes--again to my sense your
shapes,
And again the advance of armies.
Noiseless as mists and vapors,
From their graves in the trenches ascending,
From the cemeteries all through Virginia and
Tennessee,
From every point of the compass, out of the
countless unnamed graves,
In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of
twos or threes, or
single ones, they come,
And silently gather round me. 10
Now sound no note, O trumpeters!
Not at the head of my cavalry, parading on
spirited horses,
With sabres drawn and glist'ning, and carbines
by their thighs--(ah,
my brave horsemen!
My handsome, tan-faced horsemen! 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 muffled 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, 20
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; 30
But love is not over--and what love, O comrades!
Perfume from battle-fields rising--up from
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! O chant! 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.