Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN ODE OF BATTLES, by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN ODE OF BATTLES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Long ages past / the slow ice sledges bore
Last Line: Throbbed with freedom's answered prayer.
Subject(s): American Civil War; Death; Gettysburg Campaign (1863); Grief; Santiago, Battle Of (1898); Soldiers; Spanish-american War (1898); U.s. - History; Dead, The; Gettysburg, Battle Of; Sorrow; Sadness


LONG ages past
The slow ice sledges bore
These alien rocks from some far other shore;
Gray witnesses of power
In some prophetic hour
Dropped on the glacier's bed,
Strange burial-stones, to find at last
Their long-awaited dead.

Here, as if to mock regret,
Has careless nature set
The wild rose and the violet;
For what to her is battle's iron lot?
She has no memory of a day
When man had ceased to slay,
And by her strife his war is infant play;
Yet here the frail forget-me-not
Entreats remembrance of what death may gain:
For not in vain
Upon this lone hillside
Uncounted hopes have died;
And not in vain
The lordship of the soul
In that wild strife
Asked an heroic dole,
The tribute gift of life,
While homes long held in bondage of their fears
Heard what they too had spent and wailed in tears,—
The loss of youth's young love and manhood's remnant years.

Weep for thy many dead,
O Northland, weep!
Even for thy triumph weep!
Here too our brothers sleep;
Not we alone have bled.
Tears! tears for those who lost!
For bitter was the cost
When that ripe manhood at its flood
Ebbed away in blood.
Yet who beneath the shrouded sun
Upon you battle-wearied plain
Could know they too had won,
And had not died in vain?
Gone the days of lingering hate!
Came at last a happier fate
That welded state to state,
When along the island shore
We together stood once more,
And the levin blight and thunder
Were strange echoes of a day
When Spain's galleons went under.
Or, death-hunted, fled away,
While the sturdy gales that keep
Guard o'er England, beach and steep,
Sped the billows from afar,
Leaping hounds of the sea's wild war,
And set them on the track
Where, o'er ruin and o'er wrack,
Shrouding all
Fell the fog's gray funeral pall,
And the sea-greed took its toll
Of the pride of Philip's soul.

Hark and hear, ye admirals dead!
Comrades of the burly deep,
Whatsoever decks ye tread,
Wheresoever watch ye keep,—
Hark! the channel surges still
Roll o'er wrecks ye left to bide
The master might of the sea's stern will,
Scourge of storm and stress of tide:
When upon the Spaniard's flight
Closed in shame the northern night,
Not yours alone the count of sorrow
Ye left to some avenging morrow:
Far-sown islands west and east,
Thro' one long revel of misrule,
Reign of tyrant, knave, or fool,—
Cursed to the bigot and the priest.
From their days of bitter need,
From the sea-lords of our breed,
To the patience of the strong
Fell that heritage of wrong.
Rest in peace, ye captains bold:
When the tide of battle rolled
Thunderous on the island shore,
To thy children's hand the Lord
Gave for judgment doom the sword.
And at last forevermore
On those haunted Cuban coasts
That long-gathering debt was paid
And the sad and silent ghosts
Of unnumbered wrongs were laid.

Awake, sad Island Sister! Wake to be
The glad young child of liberty.
The storm of battle wholesomely
Has swept thy borders free.
Ringed with the azure of the Carib Sea,
No more the joy of thy abounding waves
Shall mock a land of slaves.

And lo! the matchless prize,
Great kingdoms craved with eager eyes,
Was ours blood-bought.
With no base afterthought
We left unransomed and complete
Earth's richest jewel at fair Freedom's feet;
Her dream of hope a glad reality;
Our share a memory!
Ah, never since the lightning of gray war
In other lands afar
Dismembered nations smote, and justice slept
While greed her plunder kept,
Has conquest left no shame
Upon the victor's name;
But here at last from war's sad field
Proud honor bore a stainless shield,
And o'er our silent dead the air
Throbbed with Freedom's answered prayer.





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