Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

But no knowledge in the grave

  Where the nameless followers sleep.

  In the Prison Pen

  (1864)

  LISTLESS he eyes the palisades

  And sentries in the glare;

  ’Tis barren as a pelican-beach—

  But his world is ended there.

  Nothing to do; and vacant hands

  Bring on the idiot-pain;

  He tries to think—to recollect,

  But the blur is on his brain.

  Around him swarm the plaining ghosts

  Like those on Virgil’s shore—

  A wilderness of faces dim,

  And pale ones gashed and hoar.

  A smiting sun. No shed, no tree;

  He totters to his lair—

  A den that sick hands dug in earth

  Ere famine wasted there,

  Or, dropping in his place, he swoons,

  Walled in by throngs that press,

  Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead—

  Dead in his meagreness.

  The College Colonel

  HE rides at their head;

  A crutch by his saddle just slants in view,

  One slung arm is in splints, you see,

  Yet he guides his strong steed—how coldly too.

  He brings his regiment home—

  Not as they filed two years before,

  But a remnant half-tattered, and battered, and worn,

  Like castaway sailors, who—stunned

  By the surf ’s loud roar,

  Their mates dragged back and seen no more—

  Again and again breast the surge,

  And at last crawl, spent, to shore.

  A still rigidity and pale—

  An Indian aloofness lones his brow;

  He has lived a thousand years

  Compressed in battle’s pains and prayers,

  Marches and watches slow.

  There are welcoming shouts, and flags;

  Old men off hat to the Boy,

  Wreaths from gay balconies fall at his feet,

  But to him—there comes alloy.

  It is not that a leg is lost,

  It is not that an arm is maimed,

  It is not that the fever has racked—

  Self he has long disclaimed.

  But all through the Seven Days’ Fight,

  And deep in the Wilderness grim,

  And in the field-hospital tent,

  And Petersburg crater, and dim

  Lean brooding in Libby, there came—

  Ah heaven!—what truth to him.

  The Eagle of the Blue l

  ALOFT he guards the starry folds

  Who is the brother of the star;

  The bird whose joy is in the wind

  Exulteth in the war.

  No painted plume—a sober hue,

  His beauty is his power;

  That eager calm of gaze intent

  Foresees the Sibyl’s hour.

  Austere, he crowns the swaying perch,

  Flapped by the angry flag;

  The hurricane from the battery sings,

  But his claw has known the crag.

  Amid the scream of shells, his scream

  Runs shrilling; and the glare

  Of eyes that brave the blinding sun

  The vollied flame can bear.

  The pride of quenchless strength is his—

  Strength which, though chained, avails;

  The very rebel looks and thrills—

  The anchored Emblem hails.

  Though scarred in many a furious fray,

  No deadly hurt he knew;

  Well may we think his years are charmed—

  The Eagle of the Blue.

  A Dirge for McPherson m

  Killed in front of Atlanta

  (July, 1864)

  ARMS reversed and banners craped—

  Muffled drums;

  Snowy horses sable-draped—

  McPherson comes.

  But, tell us, shall we know him more,

  Lost-Mountain and lone Kenesaw?

  Brave the sword upon the pall—

  A gleam in gloom;

  So a bright name lighteth all

  McPherson’s doom.

  Bear him through the chapel-door—

  Let priest in stole

  Pace before the warrior

  Who led. Bell—toll!

  Lay him down within the nave,

  The Lesson read—

  Man is noble, man is brave,

  But man’s—a weed.

  Take him up again and wend

  Graveward, nor weep:

  There’s a trumpet that shall rend

  This Soldier’s sleep.

  Pass the ropes the coffin round,

  And let descend;

  Prayer and volley—let it sound

  McPherson’s end.

  True fame is his, for life is o’er—

  Sarpedon of the mighty war.

  At the Cannon’s Mouth

  Destruction of the Ram Albemarle by the Torpedo-launch

  (October, 1864)

  PALELY intent, he urged his keel

  Full on the guns, and touched the spring;

  Himself involved in the bolt he drove

  Timed with the armed hull’s shot that stove

  His shallop—die or do!

  Into the flood his life he threw,

  Yet lives—unscathed—a breathing thing

  To marvel at.

  He has his fame;

  But that mad dash at death, how name?

  Had Earth no charm to stay in the Boy

  The martyr-passion? Could he dare

  Disdain the Paradise of opening joy

  Which beckons the fresh heart every where?

  Life has more lures than any girl

  For youth and strength; puts forth a share

  Of beauty, hinting of yet rarer store;

  And ever with unfathomable eyes,

  Which bafflingly entice,

  Still strangely does Adonis draw.

  And life once over, who shall tell the rest?

  Life is, of all we know, God’s best.

  What imps these eagles then, that they

  Fling disrespect on life by that proud way

  In which they soar above our lower clay.

  Pretense of wonderment and doubt unblest:

  In Cushing’s eager deed was shown

  A spirit which brave poets own—

  That scorn of life which earns life’s crown;

  Earns, but not always wins; but he—

  The star ascended in his nativity.

  The March to the Sea

  (December, 1864)

  NOT Kenesaw high-arching,

  Nor Allatoona’s glen—

  Though there the graves lie parching—

  Stayed Sherman’s miles of men;

  From charred Atlanta marching

  They launched the sword again.

  The columns streamed like rivers

  Which in their course agree,

  And they streamed until their flashing

  Met the flashing of the sea:

  It was glorious glad marching,

  That marching to the sea.

  They brushed the foe before them

  (Shall gnats impede the bull?);

  Their own good bridges bore them

 
Over swamps or torrents full,

  And the grand pines waving o’er them

  Bowed to axes keen and cool.

  The columns grooved their channels,

  Enforced their own decree,

  And their power met nothing larger

  Until it met the sea:

  It was glorious glad marching,

  A marching glad and free.

  Kilpatrick’s snare of riders

  In zigzags mazed the land,

  Perplexed the pale Southsiders

  With feints on every hand;

  Vague menace awed the hiders

  In forts beyond command.

  To Sherman’s shifting problem

  No foeman knew the key;

  But onward went the marching—

  Right onward to the sea:

  It was glorious glad marching,

  The swinging step was free.

  The flankers ranged like pigeons

  In clouds through field or wood;

  The flocks of all those regions,

  The herds and horses good,

  Poured in and swelled the legions,

  For they caught the marching mood.

  A volley ahead! They hear it;

  And they hear the repartee:

  Fighting was but frolic

  In that marching to the sea:

  It was glorious glad marching,

  A marching bold and free.

  All nature felt their coming,

  The birds like couriers flew,

  And the banners brightly blooming

  The slaves by thousands drew,

  And they marched beside the drumming,

  And they joined the armies blue.

  The cocks crowed from the cannon

  (Pets named from Grant and Lee),

  Plumed fighters and campaigners

  In that marching to the sea:

  It was glorious glad marching,

  For every man was free.

  The foragers through calm lands

  Swept in tempest gay,

  And they breathed the air of balm-lands

  Where rolled savannas lay,

  And they helped themselves from farm-lands—

  As who should say them nay?

  The regiments uproarious

  Laughed in Plenty’s glee;

  And they marched till their broad laughter

  Met the laughter of the sea:

  It was glorious glad marching,

  That marching to the sea.

  The grain of endless acres

  Was threshed (as in the East)

  By the trampling of the Takers,

  Strong march of man and beast;

  The flails of those earth-shakers

  Left a famine where they ceased.

  The arsenals were yielded;

  The sword (that was to be),

  Arrested in the forging,

  Rued that marching to the sea:

  It was glorious glad marching,

  But ah, the stern decree!

  For behind they left a wailing,

  A terror and a ban,

  And blazing cinders sailing,

  And houseless households wan,

  Wide zones of counties paling,

  And towns where maniacs ran.

  Was the havoc, retribution?

  But howsoe’er it be,

  They will long remember Sherman

  And his streaming columns free—

  They will long remember Sherman

  Marching to the sea.

  The Frenzy in the Wake n

  Sherman’s advance through the Carolinas

  (February, 1865)

  SO strong to suffer, shall we be

  Weak to contend, and break

  The sinews of the Oppressor’s knee

  That grinds upon the neck?

  O, the garments rolled in blood

  Scorch in cities wrapped in flame,

  And the African—the imp!

  He gibbers, imputing shame.

  Shall Time, avenging every woe,

  To us that joy allot

  Which Israel thrilled when Sisera’s brow

  Showed gaunt and showed the clot?

  Curse on their foreheads, cheeks, and eyes—

  The Northern faces—true

  To the flag we hate, the flag whose stars

  Like planets strike us through.

  From frozen Maine they come,

  Far Minnesota too;

  They come to a sun whose rays disown—

  May it wither them as the dew!

  The ghosts of our slain appeal:

  “Vain shall our victories be?”

  But back from its ebb the flood recoils—

  Back in a whelming sea.

  With burning woods our skies are brass,

  The pillars of dust are seen;

  The live-long day their cavalry pass—

  No crossing the road between.

  We were sore deceived—an awful host!

  They move like a roaring wind.

  Have we gamed and lost? but even despair

  Shall never our hate rescind.

  The Fall of Richmond

  The tidings received in the Northern Metropolis

  (April, 1865)

  WHAT mean these peals from every tower,

  And crowds like seas that sway?

  The cannon reply; they speak the heart

  Of the People impassioned, and say—

  A city in flags for a city in flames,

  Richmond goes Babylon’s way—

  Sing and pray.

  O weary years and woeful wars,

  And armies in the grave;

  But hearts unquelled at last deter

  The helmed dilated Lucifer—

  Honor to Grant the brave,

  Whose three stars now like Orion’s rise

  When wreck is on the wave—

  Bless his glaive.

  Well that the faith we firmly kept,

  And never our aim forswore

  For the Terrors that trooped from each recess

  When fainting we fought in the Wilderness,

  And Hell made loud hurrah;

  But God is in Heaven, and Grant in the Town,

  And Right through might is Law—

  God’s way adore.

  The Surrender at Appomattox

  (April, 1865)

  AS billows upon billows roll,

  On victory victory breaks;

  Ere yet seven days from Richmond’s fall

  And crowning triumph wakes

  The loud joy-gun, whose thunders run

  By sea-shore, streams, and lakes.

  The hope and great event agree

  In the sword that Grant received from Lee.

  The warring eagles fold the wing,

  But not in Cæsar’s sway;

  Not Rome o’ercome by Roman arms we sing,

  As on Pharsalia’s day,

  But Treason thrown, though a giant grown,

  And Freedom’s larger play.

  All human tribes glad token see

  In the close of the wars of Grant and Lee.

  A Canticle

  Significant of the national exaltation of

  enthusiasm at the close of the War

  O THE precipice Titanic

  Of the congregated Fall,

  And the angle oceanic

  Where the deepening thunders call—

 
And the Gorge so grim,

  And the firmamental rim!

  Multitudinously thronging

  The waters all converge,

  Then they sweep adown in sloping

  Solidity of surge.

  The Nation, in her impulse

  Mysterious as the Tide,

  In emotion like an ocean

  Moves in power, not in pride;

  And is deep in her devotion

  As Humanity is wide.

  Thou Lord of hosts victorious,

  The confluence Thou hast twined;

  By a wondrous way and glorious

  A passage Thou dost find—

  A passage Thou dost find:

  Hosanna to the Lord of hosts,

  The hosts of human kind.

  Stable in its baselessness

  When calm is in the air,

  The Iris half in tracelessness

  Hovers faintly fair.

  Fitfully assailing it

  A wind from heaven blows,

  Shivering and paling it

  To blankness of the snows;

  While, incessant in renewal,

  The Arch rekindled grows,

  Till again the gem and jewel

  Whirl in blinding overthrows—

  Till, prevailing and transcending,

  Lo, the Glory perfect there,

  And the contest finds an ending,

  For repose is in the air.

  But the foamy Deep unsounded,

  And the dim and dizzy ledge,

  And the booming roar rebounded,

  And the gull that skims the edge!

  The Giant of the Pool

  Heaves his forehead white as wool—

  Toward the Iris ever climbing

  From the Cataracts that call—

  Irremovable vast arras