Classic Poem

Dead is the roll of the drums,
And the distant thunders die,
They fade in the far-off sky;
And a lovely summer comes,
Like the smile of Him on high.

Lulled, the storm and the onset,
Earth lies in a sunny swoon;
Stiller splendor of noon,
Softer glory of sunset,
Milder starlight and moon!

For the kindly Seasons love us;
They smile over trench and clod
(Where we left the bravest of us,) —
There's a brighter green of the sod,
And a holier calm above us
In the blessed Blue of God.

The roar and the ravage were vain;
And Nature, that never yields,
Is busy with sun and rain
At her old sweet work again
On the lonely battle-fields.

How the tall white daisies grow,
Where the grim artillery rolled!
(Was it only a moon ago?
It seems a century old,) —

And the bee hums in the clover,
As the pleasant June comes on;
Aye, the wars are all over, —
But our good Father is gone.

There was tumbling of traitor fort,
Flaming of traitor fleet —
Lighting of city and port,
Clasping in square and street.

There was thunder of mine and gun,
Cheering by mast and tent, —
When — his dread work all done,
And his high fame full won —
Died the Good President.

In his quiet chair he sate,
Pure of malice or guile,
Stainless of fear or hate, —
And there played a pleasant smile
On the rough and careworn face;
For his heart was all the while
On means of mercy and grace.

The brave old Flag drooped o'er him,
(A fold in the hard hand lay,) —
He looked, perchance, on the play, —
But the scene was a shadow before him,
For his thoughts were far away.

'Twas but the morn, (yon fearful
Death-shade, gloomy and vast,
Lifting slowly at last,)
His household heard him say,
" 'Tis long since I've been so cheerful,
So light of heart as to-day. "

'Twas dying, the long dread clang, —
But, or ever the blessed ray
Of peace could brighten to-day,
Murder stood by the way —
Treason struck home his fang!
One throb — and, without a pang,
That pure soul passed away.

Kindly Spirit! — Ah, when did treason
Bid such a generous nature cease,
Mild by temper and strong by reason,
But ever leaning to love and peace?
A head how sober; a heart how spacious;
A manner equal with high or low;
Rough but gentle, uncouth but gracious,
And still inclining to lips of woe.

Patient when saddest, calm when sternest,
Grieved when rigid for justice' sake;
Given to jest, yet ever in earnest
If aught of right or truth were at stake.

Simple of heart, yet shrewd therewith,
Slow to resolve, but firm to hold;
Still with parable and with myth
Seasoning truth, like Them of old;
Aptest humor and quaintest pith!
(Still we smile o'er the tales he told.)

Yet whoso might pierce the guise
Of mirth in the man we mourn,
Would mark, and with grieved surprise,
All the great soul had borne,
In the piteous lines, and the kind, sad eyes
So dreadfully wearied and worn.

And we trusted (the last dread page
Once turned, of our Dooms-day Scroll,)
To have seen him, sunny of soul,
In a cheery, grand old age.

But, Father, 'tis well with thee!
And since ever, when God draws nigh,
Some grief for the mood must be,
'Twas well, even so to die, —

'Mid the thunder of Treason's fall,
The yielding of haughty town,
The crashing of cruel wall,
The trembling of tyrant crown!

The ringing of hearth and pavement
To the clash of falling chains, —
The centuries of enslavement
Dead, with their blood-bought gains!

And through trouble weary and long,
Well hadst thou seen the way,
Leaving the State so strong
It did not reel for a day;

And even in death couldst give
A token for Freedom's strife —
A proof how republics live,
And not by a single life,

But the Right Divine of man,
And the many, trained to be free, —
And none, since the world began,
Ever was mourned like thee.

Dost thou feel it, O noble Heart!
(So grieved and so wronged below,)
From the rest wherein thou art?
Do they see it, those patient eyes?
Is there heed in the happy skies
For tokens of world-wide woe?

The Land's great lamentations,
The mighty mourning of cannon,
The myriad flags half-mast —
The last remorse of the nations,
Grief from Volga to Shannon!
(Now they know thee at last.)

How, from gray Niagara's shore
To Canaveral's surfy shoal —
From the rough Atlantic roar
To the long Pacific roll —
For bereavement and for dole,
Every cottage wears its weed,
White as thine own pure soul, —
And black as the traitor deed.

How, under a nation's pall,
The dust so dear in our sight
To its home on the prairie past, —
The leagues of funeral,
The myriads, morn and night,
Pressing to look their last.

Nor alone the State's Eclipse;
But tears in hard eyes gather —
And on rough and bearded lips,
Of the regiments and the ships —
" Oh, our dear Father! "

And methinks of all the million
That looked on the dark dead face,
'Neath its sable-plumed pavilion,
The crone of a humbler race
Is saddest of all to think on,
And the old swart lips that said,
Sobbing, " Abraham Lincoln!
Oh, he is dead, he is dead! "

Hush! let our heavy souls
To-day be glad; for again
The stormy music swells and rolls,
Stirring the hearts of men.

And under the Nation's Dome,
They've guarded so well and long,
Our boys come marching home,
Two hundred thousand strong.

All in the pleasant month of May,
With war-worn colors and drums,
Still through the livelong summer's day,
Regiment, regiment comes.

Like the tide, yeasty and barmy,
That sets on a wild lee-shore,
Surge the ranks of an army
Never reviewed before!

Who shall look on the like again,
Or see such host of the brave?
A mighty River of marching men
Rolls the Capital through —
Rank on rank, and wave on wave,
Of bayonet-crested blue!

How the chargers neigh and champ,
(Their riders weary of camp),
With curvet and with caracole! —
The cavalry comes with thund'rous tramp,
And the cannons heavily roll.

And ever, flowery and gay,
The Staff sweeps on in a spray
Of tossing forelocks and manes;
But each bridle-arm has a weed
Of funeral, black as the steed
That fiery Sheridan reins.

Grandest of mortal sights
The sun-browned ranks to view —
The Colors ragg'd in a hundred fights,
And the dusty Frocks of Blue!

And all day, mile on mile,
With cheer, and waving, and smile,
The war-worn legions defile
Where the nation's noblest stand;
And the Great Lieutenant looks on,
With the Flower of a rescued land, —
For the terrible work is done,
And the Good Fight is won
For God and the Fatherland.

So, from the fields they win,
Our men are marching home,
A million are marching home!
To the cannon's thundering din,
And banners on mast and dome, —
And the ships come sailing in
With all their ensigns dight,
As erst for a great sea-fight.

Let every color fly,
Every pennon flaunt in pride;
Wave, Starry Flag, on high!
Float in the sunny sky,
Stream o'er the stormy tide!
For every stripe of stainless hue,
And every star in the field of blue,
Ten thousand of the brave and true
Have laid them down and died.

And in all our pride to-day
We think, with a tender pain,
Of those so far away
They will not come home again.

And our boys had fondly thought,
To-day, in marching by,
From the ground so dearly bought,
And the fields so bravely fought,
To have met their Father's eye.

But they may not see him in place,
Nor their ranks be seen of him;
We look for the well-known face,
And the splendor is strangely dim.

Perished? — who was it said
Our Leader had passed away?
Dead? Our President dead?
He has not died for a day!

We mourn for a little breath
Such as, late or soon, dust yields;
But the Dark Flower of Death
Blooms in the fadeless fields.

We looked on a cold, still brow,
But Lincoln could yet survive;
He never was more alive,
Never nearer than now.

For the pleasant season found him,
Guarded by faithful hands,
In the fairest of Summer Lands;
With his own brave staff around him,
There our President stands.

There they are all at his side,
The noble hearts and true,
That did all men might do —
Then slept, with their swords, and died.

And around — (for there can cease
This earthly trouble) — they throng,
The friends that have passed in peace,
The foes that have seen their wrong.

(But, a little from the rest,
With sad eyes looking down,
And brows of softened frown,
With stern arms on the chest,
Are two, standing abreast —
Stonewall and Old John Brown.)

But the stainless and the true,
These by their President stand,
To look on his last review,
Or march with the old command.

And lo! from a thousand fields,
From all the old battle-haunts,
A greater Army than Sherman wields,
A grander Review than Grant's.

Gathered home from the grave,
Risen from sun and rain —
Rescued from wind and wave
Out of the stormy main —
The Legions of our Brave
Are all in their lines again!

Many a stout Corps that went,
Full-ranked, from camp and tent,
And brought back a brigade;
Many a brave regiment,
That mustered only a squad.

The lost battalions,
That, when the fight went wrong,
Stood and died at their guns, —
The stormers steady and strong,

With their best blood that bought
Scarp, and ravelin, and wall, —
The companies that fought
Till a corporal's guard was all.

Many a valiant crew,
That passed in battle and wreck, —
Ah, so faithful and true!
They died on the bloody deck,
They sank in the soundless blue.

All the loyal and bold
That lay on a soldier's bier, —
The stretchers borne to the rear,
The hammocks lowered to the hold.

The shattered wreck we hurried,
In death-fight, from deck and port, —
The Blacks that Wagner buried —
That died in the Bloody Fort!

Comrades of camp and mess,
Left, as they lay, to die,
In the battle's sorest stress,
When the storm of fight swept by, —
They lay in the Wilderness,
Ah, where did they not lie?

In the tangled swamp they lay,
They lay so still on the sward! —
They rolled in the sick-bay,
Moaning their lives away —
They flushed in the fevered ward.

They rotted in Libby yonder,
They starved in the foul stockade —
Hearing afar the thunder
Of the Union cannonade!

But the old wounds all are healed,
And the dungeoned limbs are free, —
The Blue Frocks rise from the field,
The Blue Jackets out of the sea.

They've 'scaped from the torture-den,
They've broken the bloody sod,
They've all come to life again! —
The Third of a Million men
That died for Thee and God!

A tenderer green than May
The Eternal Season wears, —
The blue of our summer's day
Is dim and pallid to theirs, —
The Horror faded away,
And 'twas heaven all unawares!

Tents on the Infinite Shore!
Flags in the azuline sky,
Sails on the seas once more!
To-day, in the heaven on high,
All under arms once more!

The troops are all in their lines,
The guidons flutter and play;
But every bayonet shines,
For all must march to-day.

What lofty pennons flaunt?
What mighty echoes haunt,
As of great guns, o'er the main?
Hark to the sound again —
The Congress is all a-taunt!
The Cumberland's manned again!

All the ships and their men
Are in line of battle to-day, —
All at quarters, as when
Their last roll thundered away, —
All at their guns, as then,
For the Fleet salutes to-day.

The armies have broken camp
On the vast and sunny plain,
The drums are rolling again;
With steady, measured tramp,
They're marching all again.

With alignment firm and solemn,
Once again they form
In mighty square and column, —
But never for charge and storm.

The Old Flag they died under
Floats above them on the shore,
And on the great ships yonder
The ensigns dip once more —
And once again the thunder
Of the thirty guns and four!

In solid platoons of steel,
Under heaven's triumphal arch,
The long lines break and wheel —
And the word is, " Forward, march! "

The Colors ripple o'erhead,
The drums roll up to the sky,
And with martial time and tread
The regiments all pass by —
The ranks of our faithful Dead,
Meeting their President's eye.

With a soldier's quiet pride
They smile o'er the perished pain,
For their anguish was not vain —
For thee, O Father, we died!
And we did not die in vain.

March on, your last brave mile!
Salute him, Star and Lace,
Form round him, rank and file,
And look on the kind, rough face;
But the quaint and homely smile
Has a glory and a grace
It never had known erewhile —
Never, in time and space.

Close round him, hearts of pride!
Press near him, side by side, —
Our Father is not alone!
For the Holy Right ye died,
And Christ, the Crucified,
Waits to welcome His own.