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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


AN UNINSCRIBED MONUMENT - BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS by HERMAN MELVILLE

Poet Analysis

First Line: SILENCE AND SOLITUDE MAY HINT
Last Line: SILENT AS I, AND LONESOME AS THE LAND.
Subject(s): AMERICAN CIVIL WAR; UNITED STATES - HISTORY; WILDERNESS CAMPAIGN (1864);

SILENCE and Solitude may hint
(Whose home is in you piny wood)
What I, though tableted, could never tell --
The din which here befell,
And striving of the multitude.
The iron cones and spheres of death
Set round me in their rust, --
These, too, if just,
Shall speak with more than animated breath.
Thou who beholdest, if thy thought,
Not narrowed down to personal cheer,
Take in the import of the quiet here --
The after-quiet -- the calm full fraught;
Thou too wilt silent stand, --
Silent as I, and lonesome as the land.



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