Bret Harte - Complete Poetical Works стр 6.

     Here's the spot.  Look around you.  Above on the height
     Lay the Hessians encamped.  By that church on the right
     Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers.  And here ran a wall,
     You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball.
     Nothing more.  Grasses spring, waters run, flowers blow,
     Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago.

     Nothing more, did I say?  Stay one moment: you've heard
     Of Caldwell, the parson, who once preached the word
     Down at Springfield?  What, no?  Comethat's bad; why, he had
     All the Jerseys aflame!  And they gave him the name
     Of the "rebel high priest."  He stuck in their gorge,
     For he loved the Lord Godand he hated King George!

     He had cause, you might say!  When the Hessians that day
     Marched up with Knyphausen, they stopped on their way
     At the "farms," where his wife, with a child in her arms,
     Sat alone in the house.  How it happened none knew
     But Godand that one of the hireling crew
     Who fired the shot!  Enough!there she lay,
     And Caldwell, the chaplain, her husband, away!

     Did he preachdid he pray?  Think of him as you stand
     By the old church to-day,think of him and his band
     Of militant ploughboys!  See the smoke and the heat
     Of that reckless advance, of that straggling retreat!
     Keep the ghost of that wife, foully slain, in your view
     And what could you, what should you, what would YOU do?

     Why, just what HE did!  They were left in the lurch
     For the want of more wadding.  He ran to the church,
     Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out in the road
     With his arms full of hymn-books, and threw down his load
     At their feet!  Then above all the shouting and shots
     Rang his voice: "Put Watts into 'em!  Boys, give 'em Watts!"

     And they did.  That is all.  Grasses spring, flowers blow,
     Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago.
     You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball
     But not always a hero like thisand that's all.

     We meet in peace, though from our native East
     The sun that sparkles on our birthday feast
     Glanced as he rose on fields whose dews were red
     With darker tints than those Aurora spread.
     Though shorn his rays, his welcome disk concealed
     In the dim smoke that veiled each battlefield,
     Still striving upward, in meridian pride,
     He climbed the walls that East and West divide,
     Saw his bright face flashed back from golden sand,
     And sapphire seas that lave the Western land.

     Strange was the contrast that such scenes disclose
     From his high vantage o'er eternal snows;
     There War's alarm the brazen trumpet rings
     Here his love-song the mailed cicala sings;
     There bayonets glitter through the forest glades
     Here yellow cornfields stack their peaceful blades;
     There the deep trench where Valor finds a grave
     Here the long ditch that curbs the peaceful wave;
     There the bold sapper with his lighted train
     Here the dark tunnel and its stores of gain;
     Here the full harvest and the wain's advance
     There the Grim Reaper and the ambulance.

     With scenes so adverse, what mysterious bond
     Links our fair fortunes to the shores beyond?
     Why come we herelast of a scattered fold
     To pour new metal in the broken mould?
     To yield our tribute, stamped with Caesar's face,
     To Caesar, stricken in the market-place?

     Ah! love of country is the secret tie
     That joins these contrasts 'neath one arching sky;
     Though brighter paths our peaceful steps explore,
     We meet together at the Nation's door.
     War winds her horn, and giant cliffs go down
     Like the high walls that girt the sacred town,
     And bares the pathway to her throbbing heart,
     From clustered village and from crowded mart.

     Part of God's providence it was to found
     A Nation's bulwark on this chosen ground;
     Not Jesuit's zeal nor pioneer's unrest
     Planted these pickets in the distant West,
     But He who first the Nation's fate forecast
     Placed here His fountains sealed for ages past,
     Rock-ribbed and guarded till the coming time
     Should fit the people for their work sublime;
     When a new Moses with his rod of steel
     Smote the tall cliffs with one wide-ringing peal,
     And the old miracle in record told
     To the new Nation was revealed in gold.

     Judge not too idly that our toils are mean,
     Though no new levies marshal on our green;
     Nor deem too rashly that our gains are small,
     Weighed with the prizes for which heroes fall.
     See, where thick vapor wreathes the battle-line;
     There Mercy follows with her oil and wine;
     Or where brown Labor with its peaceful charm
     Stiffens the sinews of the Nation's arm.
     What nerves its hands to strike a deadlier blow
     And hurl its legions on the rebel foe?
     Lo! for each town new rising o'er our State
     See the foe's hamlet waste and desolate,
     While each new factory lifts its chimney tall,
     Like a fresh mortar trained on Richmond's wall.

     For this, O brothers, swings the fruitful vine,
     Spread our broad pastures with their countless kine:
     For this o'erhead the arching vault springs clear,
     Sunlit and cloudless for one half the year;
     For this no snowflake, e'er so lightly pressed,
     Chills the warm impulse of our mother's breast.
     Quick to reply, from meadows brown and sere,
     She thrills responsive to Spring's earliest tear;
     Breaks into blossom, flings her loveliest rose
     Ere the white crocus mounts Atlantic snows;
     And the example of her liberal creed
     Teaches the lesson that to-day we heed.

     Thus ours the lot with peaceful, generous hand
     To spread our bounty o'er the suffering land;
     As the deep cleft in Mariposa's wall
     Hurls a vast river splintering in its fall,
     Though the rapt soul who stands in awe below
     Sees but the arching of the promised bow,
     Lo! the far streamlet drinks its dews unseen,
     And the whole valley wakes a brighter green.

     And you are the poet, and so you want
       Somethingwhat is it?a theme, a fancy?
     Something or other the Muse won't grant
       To your old poetical necromancy;
     Why, one half you poetsyou can't deny
       Don't know the Muse when you chance to meet her,
     But sit in your attics and mope and sigh
     For a faineant goddess to drop from the sky,
     When flesh and blood may be standing by
       Quite at your service, should you but greet her.

     What if I told you my own romance?
       Women are poets, if you so take them,
     One third poet,the rest what chance
       Of man and marriage may choose to make them.
     Give me ten minutes before you go,
       Here at the window we'll sit together,
     Watching the currents that ebb and flow;
     Watching the world as it drifts below
     Up the hot Avenue's dusty glow:
       Isn't it pleasant, this bright June weather?

     Well, it was after the war broke out,
       And I was a schoolgirl fresh from Paris;
     Papa had contracts, and roamed about,
       And Idid nothingfor I was an heiress.
     Picked some lint, now I think; perhaps
       Knitted some stockingsa dozen nearly:
     Havelocks made for the soldiers' caps;
     Stood at fair-tables and peddled traps
     Quite at a profit.  The "shoulder-straps"
       Thought I was pretty.  Ah, thank you! really?

     Still it was stupid.  Rata-tat-tat!
       Those were the sounds of that battle summer,
     Till the earth seemed a parchment round and flat,
       And every footfall the tap of a drummer;
     And day by day down the Avenue went
       Cavalry, infantry, all together,
     Till my pitying angel one day sent
     My fate in the shape of a regiment,
     That halted, just as the day was spent,
       Here at our door in the bright June weather.

     None of your dandy warriors they,
       Men from the West, but where I know not;
     Haggard and travel-stained, worn and gray,
       With never a ribbon or lace or bow-knot:
     And I opened the window, and, leaning there,
       I felt in their presence the free winds blowing.
     My neck and shoulders and arms were bare,
     I did not dream they might think me fair,
     But I had some flowers that night in my hair,
       And here, on my bosom, a red rose glowing.

     And I looked from the window along the line,
       Dusty and dirty and grim and solemn,
     Till an eye like a bayonet flash met mine,
       And a dark face shone from the darkening column,
     And a quick flame leaped to my eyes and hair,
       Till cheeks and shoulders burned all together,
     And the next I found myself standing there
     With my eyelids wet and my cheeks less fair,
     And the rose from my bosom tossed high in air,
       Like a blood-drop falling on plume and feather.

     Then I drew back quickly: there came a cheer,
       A rush of figures, a noise and tussle,
     And then it was over, and high and clear
       My red rose bloomed on his gun's black muzzle.
     Then far in the darkness a sharp voice cried,
       And slowly and steadily, all together,
     Shoulder to shoulder and side to side,
     Rising and falling and swaying wide,
     But bearing above them the rose, my pride,
       They marched away in the twilight weather.

     And I leaned from my window and watched my rose
       Tossed on the waves of the surging column,
     Warmed from above in the sunset glows,
       Borne from below by an impulse solemn.
     Then I shut the window.  I heard no more
       Of my soldier friend, nor my flower neither,
     But lived my life as I did before.
     I did not go as a nurse to the war,
     Sick folks to me are a dreadful bore,
       So I didn't go to the hospital either.

     You smile, O poet, and what do you?
       You lean from your window, and watch life's column
     Trampling and struggling through dust and dew,
       Filled with its purposes grave and solemn;
     And an act, a gesture, a facewho knows?
       Touches your fancy to thrill and haunt you,
     And you pluck from your bosom the verse that grows
     And down it flies like my red, red rose,
     And you sit and dream as away it goes,
       And think that your duty is done,now don't you?

     I know your answer.  I'm not yet through.
       Look at this photograph,"In the Trenches"!
     That dead man in the coat of blue
       Holds a withered rose in his hand.  That clenches
     Nothing!except that the sun paints true,
       And a woman is sometimes prophetic-minded.
     And that's my romance.  And, poet, you
     Take it and mould it to suit your view;
     And who knows but you may find it too
       Come to your heart once more, as mine did.