Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
In the Battle
By Lucretia Gray Noble (1836–1927)T
The black-mouthed cannon bay the foe,
Dark, bristling o’er each murky height,
And all the field is whirled in fight.
Fades from me like a vision spent;—
I stand upon the battle’s marge,
And watch the smoking squadron’s charge.
With that wild shock of steel on steel;
And ringing up by rock and tree
At last the cry that summons me.
Deep thundering back its counter roll;
And all life’s ore seems newly wrought
In the white furnace of my thought.
But flashes back some mystic sign;
And every shape that erst was bright
Sweeps by me garmented in light.
Brows of world heroes bound with bays,
The crownèd majesties of Time
Rise visioned on my soul sublime.
Sound chanting through the blackened air;
And eyes look out of marble tombs,
And hands are waved from churchyard glooms.
We pant, we speed, we leap, we fly;
I feel my lifting feet aspire,
As I were born of wind and fire!
On! on! no shade my vision dims;
Transcendent o’er yon smoky wreath,
I see the glory of great Death!
I give my blood, my breath, my all,
So that on yonder rocking height
The stars and stripes may wave to-night!