Works
Leoni di Monota, [poems].
Elegiac Ode and other Poems.
Under the Empire, [novel].
Arms and the Man, and other Poems.
The Victory at Yorktown32
(From Arms and the Man.)
A Metrical Address recited on the one hundredth anniversary of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, on invitation of the United States Congress, October 19, 1881.
Prologue
Full-burnished through the long-revolving years
The ploughshare of a Century to-day
Runs peaceful furrows where a crop of Spears
Once stood in War’s array.
And we, like those who on the Trojan plain
See hoary secrets wrenched from upturned sods;—
Who, in their fancy, hear resound again
The battle-cry of Gods;—
We now,—this splendid scene before us spread
Where Freedom’s full hexameter began—
Restore our Epic, which the Nations read
As far its thunders ran.
Here visions throng on People and on Bard,
Ranks all a-glitter in battalions massed
And closed around as like a plumèd guard,
They lead us down the Past.
I see great Shapes in vague confusion march
Like giant shadows, moving vast and slow,
Beneath some torch-lit temple’s mighty arch
Where long processions go.
I see these Shapes before me all unfold,
But ne’er can fix them on the lofty wall,
Nor tell them, save as she of Endor told
What she beheld to Saul.