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I. NATIONALA SECOND REVIEW OF THE GRAND ARMY
I read last night of the grand review
In Washington`s chiefest avenue,--
Two hundred thousand men in blue,
I think they said was the number,--
Till I seemed to hear their trampling feet,
The bugle blast and the drum`s quick beat,
The clatter of hoofs in the stony street,
The cheers of people who came to greet,
And the thousand details that to repeat
Would only my verse encumber,--
Till I fell in a reverie, sad and sweet,
And then to a fitful slumber. When, lo! in a vision I seemed to stand
In the lonely Capitol. On each hand
Far stretched the portico, dim and grand
Its columns ranged like a martial band
Of sheeted spectres, whom some command
Had called to a last reviewing.
And the streets of the city were white and bare,
No footfall echoed across the square;
But out of the misty midnight air
I heard in the distance a trumpet blare,
And the wandering night-winds seemed to bear
The sound of a far tattooing. Then I held my breath with fear and dread
For into the square, with a brazen tread,
There rode a figure whose stately head
O`erlooked the review that morning,
That never bowed from its firm-set seat
When the living column passed its feet,
Yet now rode steadily up the street
To the phantom bugle`s warning: Till it reached the Capitol square, and wheeled,
And there in the moonlight stood revealed
A well-known form that in State and field
Had led our patriot sires:
Whose face was turned to the sleeping camp,
Afar through the river`s fog and damp,
That showed no flicker, nor waning lamp,
Nor wasted bivouac fires. And I saw a phantom army come,
With never a sound of fife or drum,
But keeping time to a throbbing hum
Of wailing and lamentation:
The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill,
Of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville,
The men whose wasted figures fill
The patriot graves of the nation. And there came the nameless dead,--the men
Who perished in fever swamp and fen,
The slowly-starved of the prison pen;
And, marching beside the others,
Came the dusky martyrs of Pillow`s fight,
With limbs enfranchised and bearing bright;
I thought--perhaps `twas the pale moonlight--
They looked as white as their brothers! And so all night marched the nation`s dead,
With never a banner above them spread,
Nor a badge, nor a motto brandished;
No mark--save the bare uncovered head
Of the silent bronze Reviewer;
With never an arch save the vaulted sky;
With never a flower save those that lie
On the distant graves--for love could buy
No gift that was purer or truer. So all night long swept the strange array,
So all night long till the morning gray
I watched for one who had passed away;
With a reverent awe and wonder,--
Till a blue cap waved in the length`ning line,
And I knew that one who was kin of mine
Had come; and I spake--and lo! that sign
Awakened me from my slumber.
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