Classic Poem

I

When we heard of a lady who
was said to be a stunning beauty,
we went to serenade her charms.
We were denied by summer rain —
a gully washer that got in my flute
before I played a single bar.
With Clifford's extra guitar string,
we tied a note to her doorknob, and left.

Next week, we were invited back
for meals that made the table bow:
Virginia ham, stuffed eggs, roast hens,
and mounds of biscuits I sopped full
of honey then ate with a spoon
when they collapsed. Our gracious hosts
insisted that we spend the night.
We did. A pleasant yellow slave
brought us mint juleps as we rose.

II

To stop our signal flags, the Yanks
sent several hundred men. But we
smelled out their trap and answered it
with such firepower they did not,
thank God, perceive we numbered less
than twenty men. Across two miles
of sumac and a second growth of pine,
which we relinquished inch by inch,
we poured great quantities of lead
into their ranks and watched their lines
collapse. It seemed almost a lark.

But I see clear in memory
what I ignored back then: the dull
inhuman thud of lead on flesh,
the buckling of a shot man's knees,
the outward fling of arms, and the
short arc a head inscribes before
it hits the ground. The war, my God,
had been over for two long years
before I understood that they,
the Yanks we killed, were human too.

III

( To His Father )
But in the rush and scrabble of the raid
we lost Aurora Leigh, Les Miserables ,
volumes of Shelley, Coleridge, and Keats,
and one by Heine. Secure at any price
the works of Uhland, Schelling, Tieck.
Because my flute was in my haversack,
it wasn't lost. I'm well. Don't fear for me.

IV

Miss Hankins was a handsome girl.
Not pretty — handsome. Her forehead was
too broad, her lips too thin, for pretty.
But she was full of life, possessed
a mind that almost rivaled mine,
and had a solemn faith — in me.
One night as we sat in the swing,
I made, for her, a rendering
of Heine's " Du bist wie eine Blume. "

And when it landed on my hand
I brushed a firefly off and said,
" Fly thou away and know that once
in midst of summer greenness thou
didst light upon a poet's hand. "
And Ginna Hankins never cracked a smile.
A girl like that's beyond compare —
a pearl! a ruby! After the war
I asked her to become my wife.
She said she couldn't leave her brothers
without a woman in the house.
Within a month I was engaged
to Mary Day. I couldn't wait.
To this day we still correspond.

V

( To W. A. Hopson )
I should have answered long ago.
But I've indulged myself so thoroughly
in chills and fever, I've had scant time
for food and drink. Or correspondence.

Miss H. is here. She presses me
to send her warmest sentiments
and say she's humbly satisfied
that your one friend in Franklin of her sex
is cross-eyed, dull, and otherwise
devoid of grace, because, she adds,
you'll have less call to tarry there.
It's true. Speed back. We need your bass
to add a bottom to our sing-alongs.

VI

When Cliff and I discuss the war,
we talk of lovely women, serenades,
the moonlit dashes on the beach,
the brushes of our force with theirs,
with whom we clashed with more elan
and consequence. We had enough
hair's-breadth escapes to keep our spirits high.
What a godforsaken war it would have been
if we'd run short of decent horses!

But there are many things we don't recall.
Like Hopson, who, at Gettysburg,
had one heel sliced off by a minie ball.
He sings as deeply as he ever did
but does it leaning slightly to the left.