Excerpts
from Battle-Pieces
by Herman
Melville, 1866
...
THE PORTENT
Hanging
from the beam,
Slowly swaying (such the law),
Gaunt the shadow on your
green,
Shenandoah!
The cut is on the crown
(Lo, John Brown),
And the
stabs shall heal no more.
Hidden in the cap
Is the anguish none
can draw;
So your future veils its face,
Shenandoah!
But the streaming
beard is shown
(Weird John Brown),
The meteor of the war.
THE
CONFLICT OF CONVICTIONS
(1860-1.)
On starry heights
A bugle wails
the long recall;
Derision stirs the deep abyss,
Heaven's ominous silence
over all.
Return, return, O eager Hope,
And face man's latter fall.
Events,
they make the dreamers quail;
Satan's old age is strong and hale,
A
disciplined captain, gray in skill,
And Raphael a white enthusiast still;
Dashed
aims, at which Christ's martyrs pale,
Shall Mammon's slaves fulfill?
(Dismantle
the fort,
Cut down the fleet --
Battle no more shall be!
While the
fields for fight in aeons to come
Congeal beneath the sea.)
The terrors
of truth and dart of death
To faith alike are vain;
Though comets gone a
thousand years,
Return again,
Patient she stands -- she can no more --
And
waits, nor heeds she waxes hoar.
(At a stony gate,
A statue of stone,
Weed
overgrown --
Long 'twill wait!)
But God his former mind retains,
Confirms
his old decree;
The generations are inured to pains,
And strong Necessity
Surges,
and heaps Time's strand with wrecks.
The People spread like a weedy grass,
The
thing they will they bring to pass,
And prosper to the apoplex.
The rout
it herds around the heart,
The ghost is yielded in the gloom;
Kings wag
their heads -- Now save thyself
Who wouldst rebuild the world in bloom.
(Tide-mark
And
top of the ages' strife,
Verge where they called the world to come,
The
last advance of life --
Ha ha, the rust on the Iron Dome!)
Nay, but
revere the hid event;
In the cloud a sword is girded on,
I mark a
twinkling in the tent
Of Michael the warrior one.
Senior wisdom suits not
now,
The light is on the youthful brow.
(Ay, in caves the miner see:
His
forehead bears a blinking light;
Darkness so he feebly braves --
A meagre
wight!)
But He who rules is old -- is old;
Ah! Faith is warm, but
heaven with age is cold.
(Ho ho, ho ho,
The cloistered doubt
Of
olden times
Is blurted out!)
The Ancient of Days forever is young,
Forever
the scheme of Nature thrives;
I know a wind in purpose strong --
It spins
against the way it drives.
What if the gulfs their slimed foundations bare?
So
deep must the stones be hurled
Whereon the throes of ages rear
The final
empire and the happier world.
(The poor old Past,
The Future's slave,
She
drudged through pain and crime
To bring about the blissful Prime,
Then --
perished. There's a grave!)
Power unanointed may come --
Dominion
(unsought by the free)
And the Iron Dome,
Stronger for stress and strain,
Fling
her huge shadow athwart the main;
But the Founders' dream shall flee.
Age
after age shall be
As age after age has been,
(From man's changeless heart
their way they win);
And death be busy with all who strive --
Death, with
silent negative.
YEA AND NAY --
EACH HATH HIS SAY;
BUT GOD HE KEEPS
THE MIDDLE WAY.
NONE WAS BY
WHEN HE SPREAD THE SKY;
WISDOM IS VAIN, AND
PROPHESY.
A UTILITARIAN VIEW OF THE MONITOR'S FIGHT
Plain be
the phrase, yet apt the verse,
More ponderous than nimble;
For since
grimed War here laid aside
His Orient pomp, 'twould ill befit
Overmuch to
ply
The rhyme's barbaric cymbal.
Hail to victory without the gaud
Of
glory; zeal that needs no fans
Of banners; plain mechanic power
Plied
cogently in War now placed --
Where War belongs --
Among the trades and
artisans.
Yet this was battle, and intense --
Beyond the strife of
fleets heroic;
Deadlier, closer, calm 'mid storm;
No passion; all went on
by crank,
Pivot, and screw,
And calculations of caloric.
Needless to
dwell; the story's known.
The ringing of those plates on plates
Still
ringeth round the world --
The clangour of that blacksmiths' fray.
The
anvil-din
Resounds this message from the Fates:
War shall yet be, and
to the end;
But war-paint shows the streaks of weather;
War yet shall be,
but warriors
Are now but operatives; War's made
Less grand than Peace,
And
a singe runs through lace and feather.
SHILOH
A Requiem.
(April
1862.)
Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
Over
the field in clouded days,
The forest-field of Shiloh --
Over the field
where April rain
Solaced the parched one stretched in pain
Through the
pause of night
That followed the Sunday fight
Around the church of Shiloh
--
The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting
groan
And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingled there --
Foemen at
morn, but friends at eve --
Fame or country least their care:
(What like a
bullet can undeceive!)
But now they lie low,
While over them the swallows
skim
And all is hushed at Shiloh.
LOOK-OUT MOUNTAIN
The
Night Fight.
(November, 1863.)
Who inhabiteth the Mountain
That it
shines in lurid light,
And is rolled about with thunders,
And terrors, and
a blight,
Like Kaf the peak of Eblis--
Kaf, the evil height?
Who has
gone up with a shouting
And a trumpet in the night?
There is battle in
the Mountain--
Might assaulteth Might;
'Tis the fastness of the Anarch,
Torrent-torn,
an ancient height;
The crags resound the clangor
Of the war of Wrong and
Right;
And the armies in the valley
Watch and pray for dawning light.
Joy,
joy, the day is breaking,
And the cloud is rolled from sight;
There is
triumph in the Morning
For the Anarch's plunging flight;
God has glorified
the Mountain
Where a banner burneth bright,
And the armies of the valley
They
are fortified in right.
THE MARCH TO THE SEA
(December,
1864.)
Not Kenesaw high-arching,
Nor Allatoona's glen --
Though
there the graves lie parching --
Stayed Sherman's miles of men;
From
charred Atlanta marching
They launched the sword again.
The columns
streamed like rivers
Which in their course agree,
And they streamed until
their flashing
Met the flashing of the sea:
It was glorious glad marching,
That
marching to the sea.
They brushed the foe before them
(Shall gnats
impede the bull?);
Their own good bridges bore them
Over swamps or
torrents full,
And the grand pines waving o'er them
Bowed to axes keen and
cool.
The columns grooved their channels,
Enforced their own decree,
And
their power met nothing larger
Until it met the sea:
It was glorious glad
marching,
A marching glad and free.
Kilpatrick's snare of riders
In
zigzags mazed the land,
Perplexed the pale Southsiders
With feints on
every hand;
Vague menace awed the hiders
In forts beyond command.
To
Sherman's shifting problem
No foeman knew the key;
But onward went the
marching
Unpausing to the sea:
It was glorious glad marching,
The
swinging step was free.
The flankers ranged like pigeons
In clouds
through field or wood;
The flocks of all those regions,
The herds and
horses good,
Poured in and swelled the legions,
For they caught the
marching mood.
A volley ahead! They hear it;
And they hear the repartee:
Fighting
was but frolic
In that marching to the sea:
It was glorious glad marching,
A
marching bold and free.
All nature felt their coming,
The birds like
couriers flew,
And the banners brightly blooming
The slaves by thousands
drew,
And they marched beside the drumming,
And they joined the armies
blue.
The cocks crowed from the cannon
(Pets named from Grant and Lee),
Plumed
fighters and campaigners
In that marching to the sea:
It was glorious glad
marching,
For every man was free.
The foragers through calm lands
Swept
in tempest gay,
And they breathed the air of balm-lands
Where rolled
savannas lay,
And they helped themselves from farm-lands --
As who should
say them nay?
The regiments uproarious
Laughed in Plenty's glee;
And
they marched till their broad laughter
Met the laughter of the sea:
It was
glorious glad marching,
That marching to the sea.
The grain of endless
acres
Was threshed (as in the East)
By the trampling of the Takers,
Strong
march of man and beast;
The flails of those earth-shakers
Left a famine
where they ceased.
The arsenals were yielded;
The sword (that was to be),
Arrested
in the forging,
Rued that marching to the sea;
It was glorious glad
marching,
But ah, the stern decree!
For behind they left a wailing,
A
terror and a ban,
And blazing cinders sailing,
And houseless households
wan,
Wide zones of counties paling,
And towns where maniacs ran.
Was it
Treason's retribution --
Necessity the plea?
They will long remember
Sherman
And his streaming columns free --
They will long remember Sherman
Marching
to the sea.
THE FRENZY IN THE WAKE
Sherman's advance through
the Carolinas.
(February, 1865.)
So strong to suffer, shall we be
Weak
to contend, and break
The sinews of the Oppressor's knee
That grinds upon
the neck?
O, the garments rolled in blood
Scorch in cities wrapped in
flame,
And the African -- the imp!
He gibbers, imputing shame.
Shall
Time, avenging every woe,
To us that joy allot
Which Israel thrilled when
Sisera's brow
Showed gaunt and showed the clot?
Curse on their foreheads,
cheeks, and eyes --
The Northern faces -- true
To the flag we hate, the
flag whose stars
Like planets strike us through.
From frozen Maine they
come,
Far Minnesota too;
They come to a sun whose rays disown --
May it
wither them as the dew!
The ghosts of our slain appeal:
"Vain shall
our victories be?"
But back from its ebb the flood recoils --
Back in
a whelming sea.
With burning woods our skies are brass,
The pillars of
dust are seen;
The live-long day their cavalry pass --
No crossing the
road between.
We were sore deceived -- an awful host!
They move like a
roaring wind.
Have we gamed and lost? but even despair
Shall never our
hate rescind.
THE MARTYR
Indicative of the passion of the
people on the 15th of April, 1865.
Good Friday was the day
Of the
prodigy and crime,
When they killed him in his pity,
When they killed him
in his prime
Of clemency and calm --
When with yearning he was filled
To
redeem the evil-willed,
And, though conqueror, be kind;
But they killed
him in his kindness,
In their madness and their blindness,
And they killed
him from behind.
There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the
land;
But the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand:
Beware the
People weeping
When they bare the iron hand.
He lieth in his blood --
The
father in his face;
They have killed him, the Forgiver --
The Avenger
takes his place,
The Avenger wisely stern,
Who in righteousness shall do
What
the heavens call him to,
And the parricides remand;
For they killed him in
his kindness,
In their madness and their blindness,
And his blood is on
their hand.
There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But
the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand:
Beware the People weeping
When
they bare the iron hand.
...