The Men
In the dusk of the forest shade
A sallow and dusty group reclined;
Gallops a horseman up the glade—
“Where will I your leader find?
Tidings I bring from the morning’s scout—
I’ve borne them o’er mound, and moor, and fen.”
“Well, sir, stay not hereabout,
Here are only a few of ‘the men.’
“Here no collar has bar or star,
No rich lacing adorns a sleeve;
Further on our officers are,
Let them your report receive.
Higher up, on the hill up there,
Overlooking this shady glen.
There are their quarters—don’t stop here,
We are only some of ‘the men.’
“Yet stay, courier, if you bear
Tidings that the fight is near;
Tell them we’re ready, and that where
They wish us to be we’ll soon appear;
Tell them only to let us know
Where to form our ranks, and when;
And we’ll teach the vaunting foe
That they’ve met a few of ‘the men.’
“We’re the men, though our clothes are worn—
We’re the men, though we wear no lace—
We’re the men, who the foe hath torn,
And scattered their ranks in dire disgrace;
We’re the men who have triumphed before—
We’re the men who will triumph again;
For the dust, and the smoke, and the cannon’s roar,
And the clashing bayonets—‘we’re the men.’
“Ye who sneer at the battle-scars,
Of garments faded, and soiled and bare,
Yet who have for the ‘stars and bars’
Praise, and homage, and dainty fare;
Mock the wearers and pass them on,
Refuse them kindly word—and then
Know, if your freedom is ever won
By human agents—these are the men!”
“A Rebel Soldier Killed in the Trenches before Petersburg, Va., April 15, 1865.”
By a Kentucky Girl.
Killed in the trenches! How cold and bare
The inscription graved on the white card there.
’Tis a photograph, taken last Spring, they say,
Ere the smoke of battle had cleared away—
Of a rebel soldier—just as he fell,
When his heart was pierced by a Union shell;
And his image was stamped by the sunbeam’s ray,
As he lay in the trenches that April day.
Oh God! Oh God! How my woman’s heart
Thrills with a quick, convulsive pain,
As I view, unrolled by the magic of Art,
One dreadful scene from the battle-plain:—
White as the foam of the storm-tossed wave,
Lone as the rocks those billows lave—
Gray sky above—cold clay beneath—
A gallant form lies stretched in death!
With his calm face fresh on the trampled clay,
And the brave hands clasped o’er the manly breast:
Save the sanguine stains on his jacket gray,
We might deem him taking a soldier’s rest.
Ah no! Too red is that crimson tide—
Too deeply pierced that wounded side;
Youth, hope, love, glory—manhood’s pride—
Have all in vain Death’s bolt defied.
His faithful carbine lies useless there,
As it dropped from its master’s nerveless ward;
And the sunbeams glance on his waving hair
Which the fallen cap has ceased to guard—
Oh Heaven! spread o’er it thy merciful shield,
No more to my sight be the battle revealed!
Oh fiercer than tempest—grim Hades as dread—
On woman’s eye flashes the field of the dead!
The scene is changed: In a quiet room,
Far from the spot where the lone corse lies,
A mother kneels in the evening gloom
To offer her nightly sacrifice.
The noon is past, and the day is done,
She knows that the battle is lost or won—
Who lives? Who died? Hush! be thou still!
The boy lies dead on the trench-barred hill.