So be it; but they both were young—­
Each grape to his cluster clung,
All their elegies are sung. 
The anguish of maternal hearts
  Must search for balm divine;
But well the striplings bore their fated parts
  (The heavens all parts assign)—­
Never felt life’s care or cloy. 
Each bloomed and died an unabated Boy;
Nor dreamed what death was—­thought it mere
Sliding into some vernal sphere. 
They knew the joy, but leaped the grief,
Like plants that flower ere comes the leaf—­
Which storms lay low in kindly doom,
And kill them in their flush of bloom.

AMERICA

I
Where the wings of a sunny Dome expand
I saw a Banner in gladsome air—­
Starry, like Berenice’s Hair—­
Afloat in broadened bravery there;
With undulating long-drawn flow,
As tolled Brazilian billows go
Voluminously o’er the Line. 
The Land reposed in peace below;
  The children in their glee
Were folded to the exulting heart
  Of young Maternity.

II
Later, and it streamed in fight
  When tempest mingled with the fray,
And over the spear-point of the shaft
  I saw the ambiguous lightning play. 
Valor with Valor strove, and died: 
Fierce was Despair, and cruel was Pride;
And the lorn Mother speechless stood,
Pale at the fury of her brood.

III
Yet later, and the silk did wind
  Her fair cold form;
Little availed the shining shroud,
  Though ruddy in hue, to cheer or warm. 
A watcher looked upon her low, and said—­
She sleeps, but sleeps, she is not dead. 
  But in that sleeps contortion showed
The terror of the vision there—­
  A silent vision unavowed,
Revealing earth’s foundation bare,
  And Gorgon in her hidden place. 
It was a thing of fear to see
  So foul a dream upon so fair a face,
And the dreamer lying in that starry shroud.

IV
But from the trance she sudden broke—­
  The trance, or death into promoted life;
At her feet a shivered yoke,
And in her aspect turned to heaven
  No trace of passion or of strife—­
A clear calm look.  It spake of pain,
But such as purifies from stain—­
Sharp pangs that never come again—­
  And triumph repressed by knowledge meet,
Power dedicate, and hope grown wise,
  And youth matured for age’s seat—­
Law on her brow and empire in her eyes. 
  So she, with graver air and lifted flag;
While the shadow, chased by light,
Fled along the far-drawn height,
  And left her on the crag.

INSCRIPTION For Graves at Pea Ridge, Arkansas

Let none misgive we died amiss
  When here we strove in furious fight: 
Furious it was; nathless was this
  Better than tranquil plight,
And tame surrender of the Cause
Hallowed by hearts and by the laws. 
  We here who warred for Man and Right,
The choice of warring never laid with us. 
  There we were ruled by the traitor’s choice. 
  Nor long we stood to trim and poise,
But marched and fell—­victorious!