him lean aside and look eagerly off to note
     the effect;
Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging, (the young
     colonel leads himself this time with brandish'd sword,)
I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up, no
     delay,)
I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover
     low concealing all;
Now a strange lull for a few seconds, not a shot fired on
     either side,
Then resumed the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls
     and orders of officers,
While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts
     to my ears a shout of applause, (some special success,)
And ever the sound of the cannon far or near, (rousing even
     in dreams a devilish exultation and all the old mad joy in
     the depths of my soul,)
And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions,
     batteries, cavalry, moving hither and thither,
(The falling, dying, I heed not, the wounded dripping and
     red I heed not, some to the rear are hobbling,)
Grime, heat, rush, aides-de-camp galloping by or on a full
     run,
With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles,
     (these in my vision I hear or see,)
And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-color'd
     rockets.

1865 1881

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, but lingering all the day,
Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her darkling
     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?

1871 1871

NOT YOUTH PERTAINS TO ME

Nto youth pertains to me,
Nor delicatesse, I cannot beguile the time with talk,
Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant,
In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still, for learning
     insures not to me,
Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me — yet there are two or
     three things inure to me,
I have nourish'd the wounded and sooth'd many a dying
     soldier,
And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp,
Composed these songs.

1865 1871

RACE OF VETERANS

Race of veterans — race of victors!
Race of the soil, ready for conflict — race of the conquering
     march!
(No more credulity's race, abiding-temper'd race,)
Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself,
Race of passion and the storm.

1865-6 1871

WORLD TAKE GOOD NOTICE

World take good notice, silver stars fading,
Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching,
Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning,
Scarlet, significant, hands off warning,
Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores.

1865 1867