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.
} Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice
Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
Be not dishearten’d, affection shall solve the
problems of freedom yet,
Those who love each other shall become invincible,
They shall yet make Columbia victorious.
Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious,
You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the
remainder of the earth.
No danger shall balk Columbia’s lovers,
If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves
for one.
One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian’s
comrade,
From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese,
shall
be friends triune,
More precious to each other than all the riches of
the earth.
To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come,
Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted
beyond death.
It shall be customary in the houses and streets to
see manly affection,
The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face
lightly,
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.
These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops
of iron,
I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love
of lovers tie you.
(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?
Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?
Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so
cohere.)
} I Saw Old General at Bay
I saw old General at bay,
(Old as he was, his gray eyes yet shone out in battle
like stars,)
His small force was now completely hemm’d in,
in his works,
He call’d for volunteers to run the enemy’s
lines, a desperate emergency,
I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks,
but two or three
were selected,
I saw them receive their orders aside, they listen’d
with care, the
adjutant was very grave,
I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking
their lives.
} The Artilleryman’s Vision
While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the
wars are over long,
And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant
midnight passes,
And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear,
just hear, the
breath of my infant,
There in the room as I wake from sleep this vision
presses upon me;
The engagement opens there and then in fantasy unreal,
The skirmishers begin, they crawl cautiously ahead,
I hear the
irregular snap! snap!
I hear the sounds of the different missiles, the short
t-h-t! t-h-t!
of the rifle-balls,
I see the shells exploding leaving small white clouds,
I hear the
great shells shrieking as
they pass,
The grape like the hum and whirr of wind through the


