Poems From Battle Pieces by Herman Melville

Poems From Battle Pieces

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American Literature – American Poetry – Herman Melville – Poems by Herman Melville
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Poems From Battle Pieces

The Portent
Hanging from the beam,
Slowly swaying (such the law),
Gaunt the shadow on your green, … Continue Reading …

Misgivings
When ocean-clouds over inland hills
Sweep storming in late autumn brown,
And horror the sodden valley fills, … Continue Reading …

The Conflict of Convictions
On starry heights
A bugle wails the long recall;
Derision stirs the deep abyss, … Continue Reading …

From The Conflict Of Convictions DELETED

Apathy and Enthusiasm
O the clammy cold November,
And the winter white and dead,
And the terror dumb with stupor, … Continue Reading …

The March Into Virginia
Did all the lets and bars appear
To every just or larger end,
Whence should come the trust and cheer? … Continue Reading …

Lyon
Some hearts there are of deeper sort,
Prophetic, sad,
Which yet for cause are trebly clad; … Continue Reading …

Ball’s Bluff
One noonday, at my window in the town,
I saw a sight—saddest that eyes can see—
Young soldiers marching lustily … Continue Reading …

Dupont’s Round Fight
In time and measure perfect moves
All Art whose aim is sure;
Evolving rhyme and stars divine … Continue Reading …

The Stone Fleet
I have a feeling for those ships,
Each worn and ancient one,
With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam: … Continue Reading …

Donelson
The bitter cup
Of that hard countermand
Which gave the Envoys up, … Continue Reading …

The Cumberland
Some names there are of telling sound,
Whose voweled syllables free
Are pledge that they shall ever live renowned; … Continue Reading …

In the Turret
Your honest heart of duty, Worden,
So helped you that in fame you dwell;
You bore the first iron battle’s burden … Continue Reading …

The Temeraire
The gloomy hulls in armor grim,
Like clouds o’er moors have met,
And prove that oak, and iron, and man … Continue Reading …

A Utilitarian View Of The monitor’s fight
Plain be the phrase, yet apt the verse,
More ponderous than nimble;
For since grimed War here laid aside … Continue Reading …

Shiloh
Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
Over the field in clouded days, … Continue Reading …

The Battle for the Mississippi
When Israel camped by Migdol hoar,
Down at her feet her shawm she threw,
But Moses sung and timbrels rung … Continue Reading …

Malvern Hill
Ye elms that wave on Malvern Hill
In prime of morn and May,
Recall ye how McClellan’s men … Continue Reading …

The Victor of Antietam
When tempest winnowed grain from bran;
And men were looking for a man,
Authority called you to the van, … Continue Reading …

Battle of Stone River
With Tewksbury and Barnet heath
In days to come the field shall blend,
The story dim and date obscure; … Continue Reading …

Running the Batteries
A moonless night—a friendly one;
A haze dimmed the shadowy shore
As the first lampless boat slid silent on; … Continue Reading …

Stonewall Jackson
The Man who fiercest charged in fight,
Whose sword and prayer were long—
Stonewall! … Continue Reading …

Stonewall Jackson (ascribed to a Virginian)
One man we claim of wrought renown
Which not the North shall care to slur;
A Modern lived who sleeps in death, … Continue Reading …

Gettysburg
O pride of the days in prime of the months
Now trebled in great renown,
When before the ark of our holy cause … Continue Reading …

The House-Top
No sleep. The sultriness pervades the air
And binds the brain—a dense oppression, such
As tawny tigers feel in matted shades, … Continue Reading …

Look-out Mountain
Who inhabiteth the Mountain
That it shines in lurid light,
And is rolled about with thunders, … Continue Reading …

Chattanooga
A kindling impulse seized the host
Inspired by heaven’s elastic air;
Their hearts outran their General’s plan, … Continue Reading …

The Armies of the Wilderness
Like snows the camps on southern hills
Lay all the winter long,
Our levies there in patience stood— … Continue Reading …

On The Photograph Of A Corps Commander
Ay, man is manly. Here you see
The warrior-carriage of the head,
And brave dilation of the frame; … Continue Reading …

The Swamp Angel
There is a coal-black Angel
With a thick Afric lip,
And he dwells (like the hunted and harried) … Continue Reading …

The Battle for the Bay
O mystery of noble hearts,
To whom mysterious seas have been
In midnight watches, lonely calm and storm, … Continue Reading …

Sheridan At Cedar Creek
Shoe the steed with silver
That bore him to the fray,
When he heard the guns at dawning— … Continue Reading …

In The Prison Pen
Listless he eyes the palisades
And sentries in the glare;
’Tis barren as a pelican-beach … Continue Reading …

The College Colonel
He rides at their head;
A crutch by his saddle just slants in view,
One slung arm is in splints, you see, … Continue Reading …

The Eagle of the Blue
Aloft he guards the starry folds
Who is the brother of the star;
The bird whose joy is in the wind … Continue Reading …

A Dirge for McPherson
Arms reversed and banners craped—
Muffled drums;
Snowy horses sable-draped— … Continue Reading …

At the Cannon’s Mouth
Palely intent, he urged his keel
Full on the guns, and touched the spring;
Himself involved in the bolt he drove … Continue Reading …

The March to the Sea
Not Kenesaw high-arching,
Nor Allatoona’s glen—
Though there the graves lie parching— … Continue Reading …

The Frenzy in the Wake
So strong to suffer, shall we be
Weak to contend, and break
The sinews of the Oppressor’s knee … Continue Reading …

The Fall of Richmond
What mean these peals from every tower,
And crowds like seas that sway?
The cannon reply; they speak the heart … Continue Reading …

The Surrender at Appomattox
As billows upon billows roll,
On victory victory breaks;
Ere yet seven days from Richmond’s fall … Continue Reading …

A Canticle
O the precipice Titanic
Of the congregated Fall,
And the angle oceanic … Continue Reading …

The Martyr
Good Friday was the day
Of the prodigy and crime,
When they killed him in his pity, … Continue Reading …

The Coming Storm
All feeling hearts must feel for him
Who felt this picture. Presage dim—
Dim inklings from the shadowy sphere … Continue Reading …

Rebel Color-Bearers At Shiloh
The color-bearers facing death
White in the whirling sulphurous wreath,
Stand boldly out before the line; … Continue Reading …

The Muster
The Abrahamic river—
Patriarch of floods,
Calls the roll of all his streams … Continue Reading …

Aurora Borealis
What power disbands the Northern Lights
After their steely play?
The lonely watcher feels an awe … Continue Reading …

The Released Rebel Prisoner
Armies he’s seen—the herds of war,
But never such swarms of men
As now in the Nineveh of the North— … Continue Reading …

A Grave near Petersburg, Virginia
Head-board and foot-board duly placed—
Grassed in the mound between;
Daniel Drouth is the slumberer’s name— … Continue Reading …

Formerly A Slave
The sufferance of her race is shown,
And retrospect of life,
Which now too late deliverance dawns upon; … Continue Reading …

The Apparition
Convulsions came; and, where the field
Long slept in pastoral green,
A goblin-mountain was upheaved … Continue Reading …

Magnanimity Baffled
“Sharp words we had before the fight;
But—now the fight is done—
Look, here’s my hand,” said the Victor bold, … Continue Reading …

On The Slain Collegians
Youth is the time when hearts are large,
And stirring wars
Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn … Continue Reading …

America
Where the wings of a sunny Dome expand
I saw a Banner in gladsome air—
Starry, like Berenice’s Hair— … Continue Reading …

VERSES INSCRIPTIVE AND MEMORIAL

On the Home Guards who perished in the Defense of Lexington, Missouri
The men who here in harness died
Fell not in vain, though in defeat. … Continue Reading …

Inscription
Let none misgive we died amiss
When here we strove in furious fight:
Furious it was; nathless was this … Continue Reading …

The Fortitude Of The North
They take no shame for dark defeat
While prizing yet each victory won,
Who fight for the Right through all retreat, … Continue Reading …

On the Men of Maine killed in the Victory of Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Afar they fell. It was the zone
Of fig and orange, cane and lime
(A land how all unlike their own, … Continue Reading …

An Epitaph
When Sunday tidings from the front
Made pale the priest and people, … Continue Reading …

Inscription for Marye’s Heights, Fredericksburg
To them who crossed the flood
And climbed the hill, with eyes … Continue Reading …

The Mound By The Lake
The grass shall never forget this grave.
When homeward footing it in the sun
After the weary ride by rail, … Continue Reading …

On The Slain At Chickamauga
Happy are they and charmed in life
Who through long wars arrive unscarred
At peace. To such the wreath be given, … Continue Reading …

An Uninscribed Monument
Silence and solitude may hint
(Whose home is in yon piney wood)
What I, though tableted, could never tell— … Continue Reading …

On Sherman’s Men who fell in the Assault of Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia
They said that Fame her clarion dropped
Because great deeds were done no more—
That even Duty knew no shining ends, … Continue Reading …

On The Grave Of A Young Cavalry Officer Killed In The Valley Of Virginia
Beauty and youth, with manners sweet, and friends—
Gold, yet a mind not unenriched had he … Continue Reading …

A Requiem
When, after storms that woodlands rue,
To valleys comes atoning dawn,
The robins blithe their orchard-sports renew; … Continue Reading …

On a natural Monument in a Field of Georgia
No trophy this—a Stone unhewn,
And stands where here the field immures
The nameless brave whose palms are won. … Continue Reading …

Commemorative Of A Naval Victory
Sailors there are of the gentlest breed,
Yet strong, like every goodly thing;
The discipline of arms refines, … Continue Reading …

Presentation to the Authorities by Privates of Colors captured in Battles ending in the Surrender of Lee
These flags of armies overthrown—
Flags fallen beneath the sovereign one
In end foredoomed which closes war; … Continue Reading …

The returned Volunteer to his Rifle
Over the hearth—my father’s seat—
Repose, to patriot-memory dear, … Continue Reading …

The Scout toward Aldie
The cavalry-camp lies on the slope
Of what was late a vernal hill,
But now like a pavement bare— … Continue Reading …

Lee in the Capitol
Hard pressed by numbers in his strait,
Rebellion’s soldier-chief no more contends—
Feels that the hour is come of Fate, … Continue Reading …

A Meditation
How often in the years that close,
When truce had stilled the sieging gun,
The soldiers, mounting on their works, … Continue Reading …

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

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VERSES INSCRIPTIVE AND MEMORIAL

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