cerulean — sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled!
Ah my silvery beauty — ah my woolly white and crimson!
Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty!
My sacred one, my mother!

1871 1871

TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN

Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me?
Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes?
Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?
Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand —
    nor am I now;
(I have been born of the same as the war was born,
The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well
     the martial dirge,
With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer's
     funeral;)
What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave
     my works,
And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with
     piano-tunes,
For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me.

1865 1871

LO, VICTRESS ON THE PEAKS

Lo, Victress on the peaks,
Where thou with mighty brow regarding the world,
(The world O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee,)
Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them
    all,
Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee,
Flauntest now unharm'd in immortal soundness and bloom — lo,
     in these hours supreme,
No poem proud, I chanting bring to thee, nor mastery's rapturous
     verse,
But a cluster containing night's darkness and blood-dripping
     wounds,
And psalms of the dead.

1865-6 1881

SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE

(Washington City, 1865)

Spirit whose work is done — spirit of dreadful hours!
Ere departing fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets;
Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, (yet onward ever unfaltering
     pressing,)
Spirit of many a solemn day and many a savage scene —
    electric spirit,
That with muttering voice through the war 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,
As the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders,
As I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders,
As 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 while 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.

1865-6 1881

ADIEU TO A SOLDIER

Adieu O soldier,
You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)
The rapid march, the life of the camp,
The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long manoeuvre,
Red battles with their slaughter, the stimulus, the strong
     terrific game,
Spell of all brave and manly hearts, the trains of time through
     you and like of you all fill'd,
With war and war's expression.

Adieu dear comrade,
Your mission is fulfill'd — but I, more warlike,
Myself and this contentious soul of mine,
Still on our own campaigning bound,
Through untried roads with ambushes opponents lined,
Through