Helen Gray Cone

“ Lee came riding alone, the beloved magnanimous chieftain,
All alone with defeat in the lucent night and the silence.
Slowly he rode, as one who rides by the bier of a soldier,
Hearing the muffled drums and the sob of a martial sorrow;
Slowly he rode, with downcast head, and the deep moon-shadow
Lay underneath his brows. At the last, from his horse, overwearied,
Hardly he might dismount; on the saddle heavily flinging
One lax arm, he stood awhile without word to the other;
Moveless, horse and man, as if by the art of the sculptor
Wrought in enduring bronze for an everlasting remembrance. ”

“ Guns of the Gettysburg heights, we hear you as out of the distance:
Shall we not understand? Ye spake, in your awful contending,
Words ye spake through the cloud, with austere oracular voices,
Mighty reverberant watchwords of Titan-forces in conflict:
Crying, “The sundered stars!” and replying “The heavens in their clusters,
Led in the lines of law, and linked in their differing glory
Star unto star to the end, until God folds them up as a vesture!” ”

“ Smiting his hand on the cannon, and suddenly sinking across it!
Not for them the crawl of the sick slow days of the captive,
Torture of wounds, nor bruit of the perishing cause that they fought for—
Rather swift conquest of Peace, and to enter the City of Silence!
Not for them be sorrow; but sorrow for such men as haply,
Flung on the flag of the South as it burst through the line of the Union,
Fell, and died in their doubt, and knew not the sweep of the darkness
Over their faces upturned was the passing of Victory’s garment! ”

“ Suddenly fringed the front, from the regiments crouching expectant:
Almost with awe they awaited the furious onset of foemen
Tried in the five-fold fire, and from hell undaunted emerging.
Waited not long: with the crash of answering volley for volley,
Raising the yell of the charge, wild as the howl of the wolf-pack,
Surged up out of the smoke the first of the lean tanned faces,
Teeth half-bared as in joy, and the sunken eyes savagely gleaming
Under the old gray brims and the slant of the battered visors.
Man to man at last! ”

“ With her cheeks aflame and her lips aquiver,
As she leaned and looked with a loyal shame
At the steady flow of the steely river:
Till a storm grew black in the hazel eyes
Time had not tamed, nor a lover sighed for;
And she ran and she girded her, apron-wise,
With the flag she loved and her brothers died for.
Out of the doorway they saw her start
(Pickett’s Virginians were marching through) ,
The hot little foolish hero-heart
Armored with stars and the sacred blue. ”

“ Shriek of the battery-horses, and hell-blaze of caissons exploding;
Reel of the torn cannoneer as he suddenly drops by his cannon,
Spring of the quick volunteer to snatch from his dead hand the rammer;
Orderlies galloping past, and a rumor of somewhat a-brewing:
Crouching of soldiers in gray, at the rear, in the underwoods’ flicker,—
Charge? we shall charge by and by? then a pipe of Virginia tobacco!
Over their heads as they lie, by the trunks of the fallen trees pillowed,
Jesting and resting an hour, come showering the boughs of the saplings. ”

“ Oh, the fire-gong beating fierce through the bells of Christmas day!
Just a second there to choose, and a life to keep or lose—
To the curb he swung the horses, and he flung his life away!
Ring, swing, bells in the steeple!
Ring the Star and ring the Cross, for Star and Cross are one!
Ring, swing, bells, to tell the people
God is pleased with manly men, and deeds that they have done!
[Pg 50]
GUION
Is it so hard to die in the glory and fury of fight? ”

“ Crouching expectant and grim, in the roar of that great cannonading,
Broke into cheer after cheer: with the flag of the Trefoil behind him,
Rode the corps-commander, reviewing the line of his legions,
Knowing men’s need of a man. In the fury of sound, and the frantic
Shriek of the battery horses, and hell-blaze of caissons exploding,
Reared the black charger he rode; yet persisted the resolute rider,
Masterful, mounted afresh; and along the line ran the murmur,
Flame on a dry field’s edge, “Hancock, it’s Hancock!” ”

“ The hard distrusts that sever race from race,
Comes his true jubilee!
Never, till all the wars,
Yea, even the noble wars that strive to peace,
With all the thunder of all the drums shall cease,
And all the booming guns on all the brother-shores;
Never, till that worst strife of every day,
More bitter-sordid than the clash of steel,
By some new solving word our lips may learn to say,
Be wholly done away,
Deep-drowned in brotherhood, quenched in the common weal,
Ah, never, till every spirit shall stand up free,
Comes the great Liberator’s jubilee! ”

“ Escaped from time and changes
As only spirits can,
Clear, absolute, and free!
Yet, some stern hour to be,
When a fight is fought at sea, [Pg 68]
And the right of the fight is ours,
And the cause of the right is failing,
There shall rise a frigate sailing,
A luminous presence paling
Through the powder-cloud where it lowers;
Pale smoke from her side shall break,
Pale faces over her railing
Shall frown, till the foemen shake
With fear and bewildered passion,
Marking her old-time fashion,
In the turrets of hostile powers ”

“ With the smoke of her guns surrounded,
To succor the Stripes and Stars!”
[Pg 69]
FAIR ENGLAND
White England shouldering from the sea,
Green England in thy rainy veil,
Old island-nest of Liberty
And loveliest Song, all hail!
God guard thee long from scath and grief!
Not any wish of ours would mar
One richly glooming ivy-leaf,
One rosy daisy-star.
What! phantoms are we, spectre-thin,
Unfathered, out of nothing born?
Did Being in this world begin
With blaze of yestermorn?
Nay! sacred Life, a scarlet thread,
Through lost unnumbered lives has run;
No strength can tear us from the dead ”

“ Eagerly springs from the saddle George Pickett the soldier intrepid,
Face fire-red with his hope and his haste, and the lion-shaggy
Mane of his cavalier locks tossed with the rush of his riding.
“Charge? do we charge?” So he stands.
—As over the slope of a mountain [Pg 19]
Glooms a shadow broad, and the birds in the forest stop singing,
Darkens with secret foreboding the visage of Longstreet the leader;
Shadow hangs on his soul, and his lips are locked ”

“ On to Baltimore sweeping, the one sure outlet of safety;
Almost he chanced with his hand on the close-hoarded power of the powder:
Brave and blind, or beholding too late, on the plain and the hillside,
Seven vain hours he fought; then reeling let go the advantage,
Fell back panting and foiled. Once again in its rugged intrenchments
Rested the Corps of the Star; on the field rested many forever.
So sped the morn on the Right. IV
But the Left lay still, as enchanted:
Two huge armies outstretched, and between them the undulant valley
Basking broad, as asleep ”

“ Pure splendor poured—and lo! the common street,
A golden highway into golden heaven,
With the dark shapes of men ascending still.
[Pg 48]
CALNAN’S CHRISTMAS
When you hear the fire-gongs beat fierce along the startled street,
See the great-limbed horses bound, and the gleaming engine sway,
And the driver in his place, with his fixed, heroic face,
Say a prayer for Calnan’s sake—he that died on Christmas day!
Cling! Cling! Each to his station!
Clang! Clang! Quick to clear the way!
(Christ keep the soldiers of salvation,
Fighting nameless battles in the war of every day!) ”

“ One sharp shot, and another—and born was the Battle of Battles!
Long had the good land lain in the sun and the rain, with its ridges,
Rich broad fields for the farmer, and hills dark-fledged with the forests ”

“ Blown on fields foregone by lips forgotten;
Nerve us with the courage of lost comrades,
Gird us, lead us,
Thou, O Prince of Peace and God of Battles!
[Pg 7]
THE THIRD DAY AT GETTYSBURG I
Stand we awhile at gaze, in the Place of the Battle of Battles:
High on the hill at the south, where over the fair-lying farmland
Warren keeps watch in bronze, here under the sky of the summer
Stand we awhile at gaze, far-scanning the roads and the ridges,
Doubtful that such things were. ”

“ Twice had the sun gone down on the conflict as yet undetermined.
Two fierce days were done, and the marred earth cumbered with horror,
Horror of soulless pain of the beasts that perish unknowing,
Horror of human ruin, the shattered sheaths of the spirit,
Horror men pray to forget, and the tongue refuses to tell it. ”

“ Holding the reins of power, the gathered reins of the roadways
Stretched to the north and south, to the northwest and northeast and southeast,
Roadways half a score, in the grasp of the fate-shadowed sleeper,—
Reins of power indeed, should a strong hand suddenly seize them!
What strong hand should seize? Swift-reaching, and sinewed with iron,
Masterful hand of Lee, great Captain, intrepid invader?
Far-away cities feared. Or, haply, hand new to the wielding [Pg 9]
One huge host as a sword, untried in its strength or its weakness,
Unknown hand of Meade, at the southward uncertainly groping? ”

“ Twin stars they shine, one fame forevermore.
A fire of funeral blazed, beside the sobbing shore. II
One slept a sacred sleep, while golden lay
Autumnal moonlight glorious on his bed,—
Sleep ebbing deathward like a sea-drawn bay.
A Book was in his hand, whence late he read
Majestic words of that great Spirit that still
Doth haunt by Avon April-garlanded.
So sleeping, held he fast with fixéd will
His Master’s Book; and all the night was peace,
Bright peace on lawn and terrace, dale and hill. [Pg 62]
Calm consummation, and most sweet surcease! ”

“ The lone, gaunt Gleaner on the twilight plain,
Blind-gathering with the clutch of hungry fingers.
[Pg 46]
THE RIDDLE OF WRECK
Dark hemlocks, seventy and seven,
High on the hill-slope sigh in dream,
With plumy heads in heaven;
They silver the sunbeam.
One broken body of a tree,
Stabbed through and slashed by lightning keen,
Unsouled, and grim to see,
Hangs o’er the hushed ravine.
A hundred masts, a hundred more,
Crowd close against the sunset-fires.
Their late adventure o’er,
They mingle with the spires. ”

“ Dark-green orchard slopes, and the small white houses of farmers.
So lay the little town, with its brick-paved walks and its alleys,
Garden-glimpses fair, with the faint-blue hills for a background,
Over the whitewashed fences the rosy hollyhocks leaning ”

“ Thus had they chosen to die, each dealing death in his dying.
Sullen, some bowed them to fate, waved the white sign of surrender, [Pg 28]
Droopingly trailed to the rear with the bayonet-glitter to guard them;
Brokenly over the plain receded the sorrowful remnant,
Choosing retreat through fire. ”