To the long rows of cots, up and down, each side, I return; To each and all, one after another, I draw near-not one do I miss ; An attendant follows, holding a tray-he carries a refuse pail, Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again. I onward go, I stop, With hinged knees and steady hand, to dress wounds; knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you). On, on I go (Open, doors of time! open hospital doors!) The crush'd head I dress (poor crazed hand, tear not the bandage away); The neck of the cavalry-man, with the bullet through and through, I examine; Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard; (Come, sweet death! be persuaded, O beautiful death! In mercy come quickly). From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand, I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood; Back on his pillow the soldier bends, with curved neck, and side-falling head; His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump, And has not yet look'd on it. I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep; But a day or two more-for see, the frame all wasted and sinking, And the yellow-blue countenance see! P I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet wound, Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive, While the attendant stands behind aside me, holding the tray and pail. I am faithful, I do not give out; The fractured thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen, These and more I dress with impassive hand-(yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame). Thus in silence, in dream's projections, Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals; The hurt and the wounded I pacify with soothing hand, (Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested, Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips). SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE. SPIRIT whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours! Spirit of many a solemn day, and many a savage scene! That with muttering voice, through the years now closed, like a tireless phantom flitted, Rousing the land with breath of flame, while you beat and beat the drum ; Now, as the sound of the drum, hollow and harsh to the last, reverberates round me; As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return, return from the battles; While the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders; While I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders; While those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them, appearing in the distance, approach and pass on, returning homeward, Moving with steady motion, swaying to and fro, to the right and left, Evenly, lightly rising and falling, as the steps keep time: Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one day, but pale as death next day; Touch my mouth, ere you depart-press my lips close! Leave me your pulses of rage! bequeath them to me! fill me with currents convulsive! Let them scorch and blister out of my chants, when you are gone; Let them identify you to the future in these songs! THE CITY DEAD-HOUSE. By the City Dead House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor, I curious pause for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; Her corpse they deposit, unclaim'd, it lies on the damp brick pavement; The divine woman, her body-I see the Body-I look on it alone, That house once full of passion and beauty-all else I notice not; Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odours morbific impress me; But the house alone that wondrous house, that delicate fair house-that ruin! That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built! Or white-domed Capitol itself, with the majestic figure surmounted—or all the old high-spired cathedrals, That little house alone, more than them all-poor, desperate house ! Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul! Unclaim'd, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips; Take one tear, dropt aside as I go, for thought of you, Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crush'd! House of life-erewhile talking and laughing-but ah, poor house! dead, even then ; Months, years, an echoing, garnish'd house-but dead, dead, dead. THE MYSTIC TRUMPETER. 1. HARK! Some wild trumpeter-some strange musician, Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night. I hear thee, trumpeter! listening, alert, I catch thy notes, 2. Come nearer, bodiless one! haply in thee resounds That now, ecstatic ghost! close to me bending, thy cornet echoing, pealing, Gives out to no one's ears but mine-but freely gives to mine, That I may thee translate. 3. Blow, trumpeter! free and clear-I follow thee, The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day, withdraw; A holy calm descends, like dew upon me; I walk, in cool refreshing night, the walks of Paradise, Thy song expands my numb'd, imbonded spirit-thou freëst, launchest me, Floating and basking upon Heaven's lake. 4. Blow again, trumpeter! and for my sensuous eyes, What charm thy music works!-thou makèst pass before me, Ladies and cavaliers long dead-barons are in their castle halls the troubadours are singing; Arm'd knights go forth to redress wrongs- -some in quest of the Holy Graal: I see the tournament-I see the contestants, encased in heavy armour, seated on stately, champing horses; I hear the shouts-the sounds of blows and smiting steel: I see the Crusaders' tumultuous armies-Hark! how the cymbals clang! Lo! where the monks walk in advance, bearing the Cross on high! 5. Blow again, trumpeter! and for thy theme, Take now the enclosing theme of all-the solvent and the setting; Love, that is pulse of all—the sustenance and the pang; The heart of man and woman all for love; No other theme but love-knitting, enclosing, all-iffusing love. |