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(November,
1863)
A kindling impulse seized the host
Inspired
by heaven's elastic air;
Their hearts outran their
General's plan,
Though Grant commanded there -
Grant, who without reserve can dare;
And, "Well, go
on and do your will,"
He said, and measured the
mountain then:
So master-riders fling the rein -
But you must know your men.
On yester-morn in
grayish mist,
Armies like ghosts on hills had fought,
And rolled from the cloud their thunders loud
The
Cumberlands far had caught:
Today the sunlit steeps
are sought.
Grant stood on cliffs whence all was
plain,
And smoked as one who feels no cares;
But
mastered nervousness intense,
Alone such calmness
wears.
The summit-cannon plunge their flame
Sheer down the primal wall,
But up and up each
linking troop
In stretching festoons crawl -
Nor
fire a shot. Such men appal
The foe, though brave.
He, from the brink,
Looks far along the breadth of
slope,
And sees two miles of dark dots creep,
And
knows they mean the cope.
He sees them creep. Yet
here and there
Half hid 'mid leafless groves they go;
As men who ply through traceries high
Of turreted
marbles show -
So dwindle these to eyes below.
But
fronting shot and flanking shell
Sliver and rive the
inwoven ways;
High tops of oaks and high hearts fall,
But never the climbing stays.
Near and more near;
till now the flags
Run like a catching flame;
And
one flares highest, to peril nighest -
He means to
make a name:
Salvos! they give him his fame.
The
staff is caught, and next the rush,
And then the leap
where death has led;
Flag answered flag along the
crest,
And swarms of rebels fled.
But some who
gained the envied Alp,
And -eager, ardent, earnest
there -
Dropped into Death's wide-open arms,
Quelled on the wing like eagles struck in air -
Forever they slumber young and fair,
The smile upon
them as they died;
Their end attained, that end a
height:
Life was to these a dream fulfilled,
And
death a starry night.
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