Classic Poem

Whenever I hear the fife and the drum,
And the bugle wildly play,
My heart is stirred like a frightened bird,
And struggles to break away;
For the tramp of the Volunteers I hear,
And the Captain's sharp command:
" Left! Left! Left! " He is near
And drilling his eager band.

For the women and men were at one that day,
In a purpose grand and great;
But the men are away in a stormy fray,
And the women must watch and wait.

And some were as brown as the tawny South,
And some like the dawn were fair;
And here was the lad with his girlish mouth,
And there was the beard of care.
But whether from farm or from fold they drew,
From the shop or the school-boy's seat,
Each shouldered his musket and donned the blue,
And the time with his brogans beat.

And the mother put motherly fears to flight,
And the wife hid her tears away;
For men must fight when their cause is right,
While the women in patience pray.

And now 'tis the discipline hard and sore
Of the camp and the march and the chase,
And now 'tis the flash and the crash and the roar,
As the battle creeps on apace
O God! it is hard when a comrade falls,
With his head at your very feet,
While " Forward! " the voice of your Captain calls,
And the enemy beats retreat.

And O for the mother or wife who must see,
When the news of the battle is known:
" Killed, Private C. of Company G, "
While she sits in her grief like stone.

Here, the pitiless siege and the hunger that mocks;
There, the hell of Resaca waits;
And the crash of the shell on the Georgia rocks,
As you beat on Atlanta's gates.
There are dreams of a peace that is slow to dawn,
Of the furloughs that never come;
There are tidings of grief from a letter drawn,
And the silence of lips grown dumb.

The words of your messmate you write from the crag
Where he breathed his life away:
" O say to my darling I died for the flag
She blessed when we marched that day. "

There are chevroned sleeves for some who may go,
And a captain's straps for a few,
And the scars of the hero that some may show
When is sounded the last tattoo;
But the upturned face on the enemy's side,
With its cold and ghastly stare,
Is all that is left of the pomp and the pride
Of some who the conflict share

And lo, when the enemy lifts the dead
And rifles his breast, I ween
There's a woman's face and the dainty grace
Of the babe he never has seen

And O for the famine, and O for the woe,
Of the comrades in prison pens!
For the hunger and thirst, and the fever slow,
And the torturing homesick sense!
And O for the phantoms that walk by night
And the phantoms that walk by day!
And the whirl of the brain in the hopeless fight
With the demons that gloat and prey!

And O for the scenes that they loved so well,
That haunted their dying day, —
For a draught from the well that will never swell,
And a breath of the new-mown hay!

Ah well, there are few who are left, we know,
Of the many who marched away;
And the children who clung to our skirts, I trow,
Are as tall and strong as they
There are unmarked graves in the lonely South,
There are spectres that walk at will, —
But the flag that you saved at the cannon's mouth
Is the flag that is over you still.

The flag thro' the shot and the shell that you bore,
And wrapped in your blouses blue,
The flag that your swore to defend evermore,
Is the flag of the Union too.