Classic Poem

Once again Potomac's Army answers to the muster roll;
Once again the old-time music thrills the soldier's heart and soul.
Rank on rank, with cheer and gladness, rally at the bugle-call
On the field of Saratoga, underneath its mountain-wall,
Where McGregor's evening shadows fall upon the crystal tide,
At the gate-way of the cottage where the nation's hero died;
Where the streams in gentle music still our father's requiem chant,
And the pine, the oak, the maple, and the laurel echo — Grant.

Name revered, that clasps great rivers evermore in loving thrall:
Queenly Hudson, fair Potomac, Mississippi — king of all;
Rivers three, that bind one nation from the Gulf to Northern lakes,
From the Rockies to Virginia, where the loud Atlantic breaks;
Arms entwined and interlocking, holding in their wide embrace
Sweeping hills and lordly mountains of the Appalachian race;
Fertile fields and rolling prairies with their wealth of floral bloom,
Plucked and borne by loving fingers to the loyal Logan's tomb.

Fruit of gold in silver pictures — waving fields by rivers framed;
States discordant reunited, love and land and flag reclaimed:
Fruit of gold — a century's harvest in war's reaping rudely shorn —
Garnered heroes, named and nameless, swift on fiery chariots borne.
Rest in peace by stately rivers, martyred soldiers of the free!
Rest, brave captain, at our threshold, where the Hudson meets the sea!
While Mount Vernon's sacred portal sentinels Potomac's waves,
Mississippi sends her greetings to the streams that guard their graves.

Fair Potomac! dear Potomac! at thy name what memories throng!
Deeds of heroism blazoned in a nation's art and song.
Onward sweeps the steady column to the sound of fife and drum;
Solid phalanx, proud battalion; see the sun-browned veterans come.
Forward, to the touch of elbow, as of old in long review:
Missing comrades take their places in the ranks that wear the blue.
" On to Richmond! " " On to Richmond! " swells the old familiar cry.
" On this line " — you know the context — comes the soldier's brief reply.

Southward now, with ranks concentring, reads the order of the day,
Wilderness and Spottsylvania marking halts along the way,
Where the trees are mowed with bullets — brothers battling hand to hand —
Blue and gray, with kindred courage worthy of one fatherland;
Both alike in silent trenches guarding now the peaceful scene,
Waiting till the morn's reveille wakes the camps of waving green.
Southward still across North Anna, thirty miles from Rapidan;
Southward, by the left flank marching, gallant Hancock in the van.

How each message, fraught with glory, taught a listening land the names
Of the Old Dominion rivers, from Potomac to the James!
How you kept the " Dailies " busy with their topographic maps —
One eye on the Shenandoah, one on Sherman's shoulder-straps!
Sheridan in rapid orbit, like a genuine son of Mars,
Sherman on the outer circle, Saturn-like among the stars;
Here and there a warlike comet — danntless Custer, dashing " Kil; "
But they had to " get up Early " to compete with " Little Phil. "

Who can paint that panorama, clear and perfect in detail?
Who can trace the telling bullets in that storm of leaden hail?
Who can twine a fitting garland for each dear heroic name,
Or untwist the strands of glory in the cable of our fame?
This sufficeth and abideth — every thread is firm and true;
Homespun texture, double woven, colors fast — red, white, and blue;
Knotted well at Appomattox, tred to keep the threads in place,
Never more to be unravelled in the nation's onward race.

Homeward now with flaunting banners, every heart with triumph thrills;
Homeward to the old-time quarters on the Alexandria hills.
Once again a thousand camp-fires on the wide horizon glow;
Once again the canvas city spreads its tents of drifted snow;
All the long, fierce conflict over, day of Jubilee is here;
No more longing, no more waiting — give us, boys, a song of cheer.
Hail the bright-illumined city, with its crowning dome of white!
Hail Columbia! hail Potomac! All the land is free to-night!

What is that along the hill-side? See a hundred twinkling points
Starting up and gliding slowly, serpent-like, with glittering joints.
Mark the sweeping curves of beauty as in waving lines it breaks,
Holding all the wide encampment in its folds of fiery flakes —
Solid squares and ranks of twinkle putting phantasy to shame;
Phosphorous billows in the darkness gemmed with drifting dots of flame;
Ghostly folds of sable serge cloth trimmed with glittering golden braid;
Spirit-lights of weird battalions dancing all in masquerade.

You remember well the sombre silence of that vision vast;
As a background for the pageant, all the sky was overcast.
Then upon the stillness breaking came the old familiar airs,
Choral links of home and camp-fire treasured in a nation's prayers —
" Home, Sweet Home " and " John Brown's Body, " " Dixie-Land " and " Old Camp-ground, "
Swinging symphonies commingled in one bright bouquet of sound.
Then from out the ruddy petals " Forward! " came the order shrill,
And the visioned scene was mortal — 'twas the famous candle-drill.

No one knew just how it started, how that strange parade began,
Emblem of the nation's genius and the individual man;
Waiting not lieutenant's order, epaulette, or crimson sash,
Blending in the ready impulse Saxon grit and Gaelic dash.
Here, perhaps, a lighted candle in a musket, just for play,
Then a score, platoon, battalion — all the scene is under way,
And the chorus, proudly swelling, stirs the heart of every corps,
" We are coming, Father Abram, fifty thousand candles more. "

We are coming, we are coming, as of old the army came —
" Wide Awakes " and " Little Giants, " in one lava stream of flame,
Knowing but one common duty when the banner was defied,
Stirred in every nerve and fibre when the gallant Ellsworth died.
Steadfast Lincoln, Douglas greets you with his followers tried and true:
" Keep for aye the nation's honor, all the stars within the blue. "
Noble hero! generous rival! both, alas, too soon to fall.
Lincoln! still the Douglas greets you, " Dinna ye hear the slogan call? "

Not more quickly sprang that pageant from the silence of the night
Than the army of the people panoplied in freedom's might;
Not more swiftly Concord's message flashed from Boston's Old South spire;
Not more speedily the answer to Clan Alpine's Cross of Fire;
Not more ready Roderick's followers springing at the whistle shrill,
Than the loyal yeoman soldiers starting up from plain and hill.
Not more quickly Highland claymores sank in copse and heathered glen
Than the grand old army veterans back into the land again.

" One from many, " reads our motto, wider, deeper than before —
Not of states, but individuals — " We, the people, " evermore!
Tell me not of servile soldiers who for king or sovereign died,
Here a million kings and sovereigns marched to victory side by side;
Brothers all in sacred compact, file and captain equal born;
Comrade answering to comrade, waiting for the promised morn.
Far and wide each gleaming taper, " like a good deed, " shines abroad,
Till the flaming heights of freedom manifest the will of God.

But the hill-side's fading beauty tells us the parade is o'er,
Like the embers of the camp-fire dying out forevermore.
Only now in distant windows gleams the candle through the night,
And the camp-fires change to firesides, with their cheery visions bright
Streaming out into the darkness past the lane and wicket gate,
Where the mother, wife, and sister, all the loved and loving, wait.
Glorious land to live or die for! Let Columbia bend her knee
As she grants her proudest honors to the soldiers of the free.