- end_line
- 2019
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:58.829Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1910
- text
- And others turned the reddish soil,
Like diggers of graves they bent:
The reddish soil and tranching toil
Begat presentiment.
_Did the Fathers feel mistrust?
Can no final good be wrought?
Over and over, again and again
Must the fight for the Right be fought?_
They lead a Gray-back to the crag:
“Your earth-works yonder--tell us, man”
“A prisoner--no deserter, I,
Nor one of the tell-tale clan”
His rags they mark: “True-blue like you
Should wear the color--your Country’s, man”
He grinds his teeth: “However that be,
Yon earth-works have their plan.”
_Such brave ones, foully snared
By Belial’s wily plea,
Were faithful unto the evil end--
Feudal fidelity._
“Well, then, your camps--come, tell the names”
Freely he leveled his finger then:
“Yonder--see--are our Georgians; on the crest,
The Carolinians; lower, past the glen,
Virginians--Alabamians--Mississippians--Kentuckians
(Follow my finger)--Tennesseeans; and the ten
Camps _there_--ask your grave-pits; they’ll tell.
Halloa! I see the picket-hut, the den
Where I last night lay.” “Where’s Lee”
“In the hearts and bayonets of all yon men!”
_The tribes swarm up to war
As in ages long ago,
Ere the palm of promise leaved
And the lily of Christ did blow._
Their mounted pickets for miles are spied
Dotting the lowland plain,
The nearer ones in their veteran-rags--
Loutish they loll in lazy disdain.
But ours in perilous places bide
With rifles ready and eyes that strain
Deep through the dim suspected wood
Where the Rapidan rolls amain.
_The Indian has passed away,
But creeping comes another--
Deadlier far. Picket,
Take heed--take heed of thy brother!_
From a wood-hung height, an outpost lone,
Crowned with a woodman’s fort,
The sentinel looks on a land of dole,
Like Paran, all amort.
Black chimneys, gigantic in moor-like wastes,
The scowl of the clouded sky retort;
The hearth is a houseless stone again--
Ah! where shall the people be sought?
_Since the venom such blastment deals,
The south should have paused, and thrice,
Ere with heat of her hate she hatched
The egg with the cockatrice._
A path down the mountain winds to the glade
Where the dead of the Moonlight Fight lie low;
A hand reaches out of the thin-laid mould
As begging help which none can bestow.
But the field-mouse small and busy ant
Heap their hillocks, to hide if they may the woe:
By the bubbling spring lies the rusted canteen,
And the drum which the drummer-boy dying let go.
_Dust to dust, and blood for blood--
Passion and pangs! Has Time
Gone back? or is this the Age
Of the world’s great Prime?_
The wagon mired and cannon dragged
Have trenched their scar; the plain
Tramped like the cindery beach of the damned--
A site for the city of Cain.
And stumps of forests for dreary leagues
Like a massacre show. The armies have lain
By fires where gums and balms did burn,
And the seeds of Summer’s reign.
_Where are the birds and boys?
Who shall go chestnutting when
October returns? The nuts--
O, long ere they grow again._
They snug their huts with the chapel-pews,
In court-houses stable their steeds--
Kindle their fires with indentures and bonds,
And old Lord Fairfax’s parchment deeds;
And Virginian gentlemen’s libraries old--
Books which only the scholar heeds--
Are flung to his kennel. It is ravage and range,
And gardens are left to weeds.
_Turned adrift into war
Man runs wild on the plain,
Like the jennets let loose
On the Pampas--zebras again._
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