Poem: “The Muster” by Herman Melville

Poems From Battle Pieces

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American Literature – American Poetry – Herman Melville – Poems by Herman Melville – Clarel
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The Muster
Suggested by the Two Days’ Review at Washington.
(May, 1865.)

The Abrahamic river—
Patriarch of floods,
Calls the roll of all his streams
And watery mutitudes:
Torrent cries to torrent,
The rapids hail the fall;
With shouts the inland freshets
Gather to the call.

The quotas of the Nation,
Like the water-shed of waves,
Muster into union—
Eastern warriors, Western braves.
Martial strains are mingling,
Though distant far the bands,
And the wheeling of the squadrons
Is like surf upon the sands.

The bladed guns are gleaming—
Drift in lengthened trim,
Files on files for hazy miles—
Nebulously dim.

O Milky Way of armies—
Star rising after star,
New banners of the Commonwealths,
And eagles of the War.

The Abrahamic river
To sea-wide fullness fed,
Pouring from the thaw-lands
By the God of floods is led:
His deep enforcing current
The streams of ocean own,
And Europe’s marge is evened
By rills from Kansas lone.

< < < Rebel Color-Bearers At Shiloh
Aurora Borealis > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – Herman Melville – Poems by Herman Melville – Clarel

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Poems From Battle Pieces

The MusterSuggested by the Two Days’ Review at Washington.(May, 1865.)

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The Muster
Suggested by the Two Days’ Review at Washington.
(May, 1865.)