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Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?

Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?

Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Has the night descended?

Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way?

Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

Till with sound of trumpet,

Far, far off the daybreak call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,

Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

817

ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLORS

Who are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human, With your woolly-white and turban'd head, and bare bony feet?

Why rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet?

('Tis while our army lines Carolina's sands and pines, Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia com'st to me, As under doughty Sherman I march toward the sea.)

Me master years a hundred since from my parents sunder'd, A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught, Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought.

No further does she say, hut lingering all the day,

Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her dark

ling eye,

And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons moving by.

What is it fateful woman, so blear, hardly human? Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow, red and green?

Are the things so strange and marvelous you see or have seen?

818

THE WOUND-DRESSER

1

An old man bending I come among new faces,

Years looking backward resuming in answer to children, Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me,

(Arous'd and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,

But soon my fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd and I resign'd myself,

To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;)

Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances,

Of unsurpass'd heroes (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;)

Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth, Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us?

What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics, Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?

2

O maidens and young men I love and that love me, What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls,

Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover'd with sweat and dust,

In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the rush of successful charge.

Enter the captur'd works—yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade,

Pass and are gone they fade—I dwell not on soldiers' perils or soldiers' joys

(Both I remember well—many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content).

But in silence, in dreams' projections,

While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on, So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand,

With hinged knees returning I enter the doors (while for you up there,

Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart).

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,

Straight and swift to my wounded I go,

Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in, Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground, Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital,

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,

I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidabla, One turns to me his appealing eyes—poor boy! I never knew

you,

Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you.

3

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 curv'd 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.

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bulletwound,

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.

1 am faithful, I do not give out,

The fractur'd 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).

4

Thus in silence in dreams' projections,

Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals, The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,

I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young, Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad, (Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested,

Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips).

819

GIVE ME THE SPLENDID SILENT SUN

1

Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams fulldazzling,

Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard, Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows,

Give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd grape,

Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals teaching content,

Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars,

Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturb'd,

Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd woman of whom I should never tire,

Give me a perfect child, give me away aside from the noise of the world a rural domestic life,

Give me to warble spontaneous songs recluse by myself, for my own eats only,

Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal sanities!

These demanding to have them (tired with ceaseless excitement, and rack'd by the war-strife),

These to procure incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart,

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