THE maimed and broken warrior lay, By his last foeman brought to bay. No sounds of battlefield were there -- The drum's deep bass, the trumpet's blare. No lines of swart battalions broke Infuriate, thro' the sulphurous smoke. But silence held the tainted room An ominous hush, an awful gloom, Save when, with feverish moan, he stirred, And dropped some faint, half-muttered word, Or outlined in vague, shadowy phrase, The changeful scenes of perished days! What thoughts on his bewildered brain, Must then have flashed their blinding pain! The past and future, blent in one, -- Wild chaos round life's setting sun. But most his spirit's yearning gaze Was fain to pierce the future's haze, And haply view what fate should find The tender loves he left behind. "O God! outworn, despondent, poor, I tarry at death's opening door, While subtlest ties of sacred birth Still bind me to the lives of earth. How @3can@1 I in calm courage die, Thrilled by the anguish of a cry I know from orphaned lips shall start Above a father's pulseless heart?" His eyes, by lingering languors kissed, Shone like sad stars thro' autumn mist; And all his being felt the stress Of helpless passion's bitterness. When, from the fever-haunted room, The prescient hush, the dreary gloom, A blissful hope divinely stole O'er the vexed waters of his soul, That sank as sank that stormy sea, Subdued by Christ in Galilee. It whispered low, with smiling mouth, "She is not dead, -- thy queenly South. And since for her each liberal vein Lavished thy life, like vintage rain, When round the bursting wine-press meet The Ionian harvesters' crimsoned feet; And since for her no galling curb Could bind thy patriot will superb. Yea! since for her thine all was spent, Unmeasured, with a grand content, -- Soldier, thine orphaned ones shall rest, Serene, on her imperial breast. Her faithful arms shall be their fold, In summer's heart, in winter's cold; And her proud beauty melt above Their weakness in majestic love!" Ah! then the expiring hero's face, Like Stephen's, glowed with rapturous grace. Mad missiles of a morbid mood, Hurled at his heart in solitude, No longer wounding, round it fell; Peace sweetened his supreme farewell! For sure the harmonious hope was true, O South! he leaned his faith on you! And in clear vision, ere he died, Saw its pure promise justified. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE by EMMA LAZARUS IN 'DESIGNING A CLOAK TO CLOAK HIS DESIGNS' YOU WRESTED FROM OBLIVION by MARIANNE MOORE TO A REPUBLICAN FRIEND, 1848 by MATTHEW ARNOLD DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: SIBYLLA'S DIRGE by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE WOOING by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR TO DAFFODILS by ROBERT HERRICK |