No More Learning

5.

For the son is brought with the father;
In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell;
Two veterans, son and father, dropped together,
And the double grave awaits them.


6.

Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive;
And the daylight o'er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.


7.

In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumined,
'Tis some mother's large, transparent face,
In heaven brighter growing.


8.

O strong dead-march, you please me!
O moon immense, with your silvery face you soothe me!
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans, passing to burial!
What I have I also give you.


9.

The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music;
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.



_SURVIVORS.
_


How solemn, as one by one,
As the ranks returning, all worn and sweaty--as the men file by where I
stand;
As the faces, the masks appear--as I glance at the faces, studying the
masks;
As I glance upward out of this page, studying you, dear friend, whoever you
are;--
How solemn the thought of my whispering soul, to each in the ranks, and to
you!
I see, behind each mask, that wonder, a kindred soul.
O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend,
Nor the bayonet stab what you really are.
--The soul, yourself, I see, great as any, good as the best,
Waiting secure and content,--which the bullet could never kill,
Nor the bayonet stab, O friend!



_HYMN OF DEAD SOLDIERS. _


1.

One breath, O my silent soul!
A perfumed thought--no more I ask, for the sake of all dead soldiers.


2.

Buglers off in my armies!
At present I ask not you to sound;
Not at the head of my cavalry, all on their spirited horses,
With their sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines clanking by their
thighs--(ah, my brave horsemen! My handsome, tan-faced horsemen!
what life, what joy and pride, With all the perils, were yours! )

Nor you drummers--neither at _reveille_, at dawn,
Nor the long roll alarming the camp--nor even the muffled beat for a
burial;
Nothing from you, this time, O drummers, bearing my warlike drums.


3.

But aside from these, and the crowd's hurrahs, and the land's
congratulations,
Admitting around me comrades close, unseen by the rest, and voiceless,
I chant this chant of my silent soul, in the name of all dead soldiers.