I
One ship, one only
One sentry
One grave marked
An old man seeking a battlefield,
I march on the land of the enemy
For my son.
Who will know where he fell?
How take him, taken by the enemy?
How wrest him, young and strong
From war, from peace?
Your Christmas letter descended
Like a Parrot shell and near
Annihilated this home-starved soldier. . . .
Six days before!
Climbing the parapet, a minie ball.
His comrade's flask implored declining lips.
The battlefield stretches south.
Is it salt-marsh birds —
Or dead soldiers whistling?
Nightmare or real madness?
I stumble over dead grass locked in ice.
This alien wind blows sand
Not southern; arctic sand peppers
My flowing eyes and face.
I hear my wild voice singing hymns;
Feel tears like death-throes shake me,
Then breath gives out and I sit down to rest.
The salt wind roughs sand-wounds.
The eye calls, Edward . . . .
Answer, only those wind-borne birds.
Expanse of sea and marsh.
Expanse of dunes.
I hail the single soldier strolling near.
We two meet in an empty world.
(Surely the bounds of fate,
A grim tale's magic.)
" Graves from the battle of January 15? "
" On that knoll, sir. "
Surely the bounds of our lives.
Are fixed by our Creator.
One marked, one only,
The pine-stave written on in lampblack.
My trembling spectacles give time for magic:
The darling of his sisters, mother
His steady eye, good sense
His quiet dreams
It seems I may spend out my years
Beside the spot.
I walk away,
Return and weep again.
Again I try to go on with my plan,
Set out for General Terry's —
Come back to him.
Three times I leave and
Stay to mourn.
So, thanking God for His
Mercy and goodness to me —
Only one grave marked.
Surely the bounds of our lives
II
Take up the body now?
Only a pine coffin? Ah.
At some future time. . . .
With one of lead. . . .
Gentlemen, I must say
Without intending to offend that
(If it be not counter to God's will)
I will never leave Federal Point
Without Edward's body.
" If we had salt and rosin. . . .
" Things unsettled. . . . "
Only to wait,
Thanking God for His mercy and goodness:
One ship, one only.
One sentry,
One grave marked.
On the sealing of coffins. . . .
Salt in supply.
Tentcloth, none. No pitch nor rosin.
III
(Surely the bounds of fate,
A grim tale's magic)
No pitch no rosin
Here near the tidewater is a knoll of sand.
I loiter,
Led by — the devil despair?
Godmother in disguise?
The hand of God?
Take this fragment of a pickax
And look there near the tidewater.
Hans, or Abraham, obey.
To my astonishment. . . .
A barrel of rosin
There buried in the sand.
Tears, thanking, etc.
I take the load upon my back
Struggling through deep sand
(Especially as . . . not at that time
In good health and not for years
Subject to so great exposure)
Near nightfall, greatly fatigued,
I drift into a German fairy tale:
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man
Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door. . . .
" Orderly, take your horse and another;
" Go with this gentleman to the Point. "
And so aboard the Montauk for the night.
IV
Needing what you don't want is hell.
A need for pitch, for sealing-black. . . .
Again stand at the magic spot
The Cape Fear's tide,
Conjure a barrel grounded in the shallows
Delightful as the ark in Pharaoh's flags
Delightful as the babe to Levi's house,
This coffin-gift.
The tide gone out, the barrel turns to staves —
Staves thick-pitched inside.
Thanking God, etc. . . .
Beside the joiner's bench
I steady planks, his bed,
Give from my hand the separate coffin nails,
Thanking God,
V
A tent-cloth, a detail of men,
A hollow in the sand, a fire,
Pitch and a little rosin in a pot.
It bubbles smackingly.
We frost the coffin and pitch tight the box,
Swab black the tent-cloth.
Unbidden blue coats straggle round
To meet my son.
I watch each salt of sand
On each gross shovel
Each inch to forty-eight,
Down to the end of miracles.
He lies half-turned,
His braided collar up
Against the elements (now chiefly earth)
Cape folded over face.
Face . . . speeding from face to skull.
(The teeth appeared very prominent.)
What has your plum-pudding to do with me?
Ah, my friends, thus it was with the captain
In ancient times, when afar off he gazed
At the smoking ruins
Of the beloved city of his birth
Burned by a barbarous enemy.
In enemy land
Who mourns burned cities?
— Ruin!
Consider the holes made by the ball.
The hands, you judge, are very like. . . .
( " Ah, can ye doubt? " asks one rough man,
" For sure now, he greatly resembles ye " )
Face, white and swollen;
Eyes, somehow injured.
The wreck of our anticipations
His love for me. . . .
His Virgil parody. . . .
" A favorite with the men "
A puzzle, one set out so late
Has overshot into eternity
And left me plodding on.
At last I let them.
They wind the cloth about him.
And I, mounting, whip to Fort Lamb
Driven by the hammers.
Some days are pages ragtorn from hell.
Yet on this cruellest day night came.
Aboard the Montauk , water-rocked,
I slept, slept peacefully,
As if we two
Slept in our beds at home.
VI
His corpse recaptured from the enemy,
I brought him back where he was born
To that address his letters came.
( " To all — Dear Father Mother Fred
Abbie and Jim Chas
Mary Ell and
Babies " )
To services appropriately grave.
There lie in peace till Morning.
The sent-out child lies harvested.
The stone doves peck.
My watch ticks in my waistcoat.
My News waits by the window.
Snow falls
I believe that the bounds of our lives
Are fixed by our Creator
And we cannot pass them.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
One ship, one only
One sentry
One grave marked
An old man seeking a battlefield,
I march on the land of the enemy
For my son.
Who will know where he fell?
How take him, taken by the enemy?
How wrest him, young and strong
From war, from peace?
Your Christmas letter descended
Like a Parrot shell and near
Annihilated this home-starved soldier. . . .
Six days before!
Climbing the parapet, a minie ball.
His comrade's flask implored declining lips.
The battlefield stretches south.
Is it salt-marsh birds —
Or dead soldiers whistling?
Nightmare or real madness?
I stumble over dead grass locked in ice.
This alien wind blows sand
Not southern; arctic sand peppers
My flowing eyes and face.
I hear my wild voice singing hymns;
Feel tears like death-throes shake me,
Then breath gives out and I sit down to rest.
The salt wind roughs sand-wounds.
The eye calls, Edward . . . .
Answer, only those wind-borne birds.
Expanse of sea and marsh.
Expanse of dunes.
I hail the single soldier strolling near.
We two meet in an empty world.
(Surely the bounds of fate,
A grim tale's magic.)
" Graves from the battle of January 15? "
" On that knoll, sir. "
Surely the bounds of our lives.
Are fixed by our Creator.
One marked, one only,
The pine-stave written on in lampblack.
My trembling spectacles give time for magic:
The darling of his sisters, mother
His steady eye, good sense
His quiet dreams
It seems I may spend out my years
Beside the spot.
I walk away,
Return and weep again.
Again I try to go on with my plan,
Set out for General Terry's —
Come back to him.
Three times I leave and
Stay to mourn.
So, thanking God for His
Mercy and goodness to me —
Only one grave marked.
Surely the bounds of our lives
II
Take up the body now?
Only a pine coffin? Ah.
At some future time. . . .
With one of lead. . . .
Gentlemen, I must say
Without intending to offend that
(If it be not counter to God's will)
I will never leave Federal Point
Without Edward's body.
" If we had salt and rosin. . . .
" Things unsettled. . . . "
Only to wait,
Thanking God for His mercy and goodness:
One ship, one only.
One sentry,
One grave marked.
On the sealing of coffins. . . .
Salt in supply.
Tentcloth, none. No pitch nor rosin.
III
(Surely the bounds of fate,
A grim tale's magic)
No pitch no rosin
Here near the tidewater is a knoll of sand.
I loiter,
Led by — the devil despair?
Godmother in disguise?
The hand of God?
Take this fragment of a pickax
And look there near the tidewater.
Hans, or Abraham, obey.
To my astonishment. . . .
A barrel of rosin
There buried in the sand.
Tears, thanking, etc.
I take the load upon my back
Struggling through deep sand
(Especially as . . . not at that time
In good health and not for years
Subject to so great exposure)
Near nightfall, greatly fatigued,
I drift into a German fairy tale:
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man
Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door. . . .
" Orderly, take your horse and another;
" Go with this gentleman to the Point. "
And so aboard the Montauk for the night.
IV
Needing what you don't want is hell.
A need for pitch, for sealing-black. . . .
Again stand at the magic spot
The Cape Fear's tide,
Conjure a barrel grounded in the shallows
Delightful as the ark in Pharaoh's flags
Delightful as the babe to Levi's house,
This coffin-gift.
The tide gone out, the barrel turns to staves —
Staves thick-pitched inside.
Thanking God, etc. . . .
Beside the joiner's bench
I steady planks, his bed,
Give from my hand the separate coffin nails,
Thanking God,
V
A tent-cloth, a detail of men,
A hollow in the sand, a fire,
Pitch and a little rosin in a pot.
It bubbles smackingly.
We frost the coffin and pitch tight the box,
Swab black the tent-cloth.
Unbidden blue coats straggle round
To meet my son.
I watch each salt of sand
On each gross shovel
Each inch to forty-eight,
Down to the end of miracles.
He lies half-turned,
His braided collar up
Against the elements (now chiefly earth)
Cape folded over face.
Face . . . speeding from face to skull.
(The teeth appeared very prominent.)
What has your plum-pudding to do with me?
Ah, my friends, thus it was with the captain
In ancient times, when afar off he gazed
At the smoking ruins
Of the beloved city of his birth
Burned by a barbarous enemy.
In enemy land
Who mourns burned cities?
— Ruin!
Consider the holes made by the ball.
The hands, you judge, are very like. . . .
( " Ah, can ye doubt? " asks one rough man,
" For sure now, he greatly resembles ye " )
Face, white and swollen;
Eyes, somehow injured.
The wreck of our anticipations
His love for me. . . .
His Virgil parody. . . .
" A favorite with the men "
A puzzle, one set out so late
Has overshot into eternity
And left me plodding on.
At last I let them.
They wind the cloth about him.
And I, mounting, whip to Fort Lamb
Driven by the hammers.
Some days are pages ragtorn from hell.
Yet on this cruellest day night came.
Aboard the Montauk , water-rocked,
I slept, slept peacefully,
As if we two
Slept in our beds at home.
VI
His corpse recaptured from the enemy,
I brought him back where he was born
To that address his letters came.
( " To all — Dear Father Mother Fred
Abbie and Jim Chas
Mary Ell and
Babies " )
To services appropriately grave.
There lie in peace till Morning.
The sent-out child lies harvested.
The stone doves peck.
My watch ticks in my waistcoat.
My News waits by the window.
Snow falls
I believe that the bounds of our lives
Are fixed by our Creator
And we cannot pass them.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away
Blessed be the name of the Lord.