Ah, who shall tell the tale of those wild years, Of pride and grief, of blood and tears? The horror and the splendour and the sorrow, The marching-songs of midnight, the sick fears Of every fateful morrow? Sometimes a waft of song, a random strain, Suddenly lifts a curtain in the brain: Some sweet old homesick soldier-ballad, one Beloved of many a sunburnt longing son Of Michigan or Maine, Or that light laughing tune wherewith the South Fifed her boy-soldiers blithe to the cannon’s mouth,-- Suddenly all is real once more, The hoping, the despairing, The pity and the passion and the daring, And all the agony of the Brother-War! V Each bore his burden: but he all burdens bore, Whose sad heart folded all the sufferers in; While with a master’s steady hand he played, Mournful but undismayed, That giant game where it was pain to win. Ah, pain to win, but double death to lose! He saw the end, he knew the thing at stake Was Manhood’s captain-jewel: he could not choose But play the grim game out, though that great heart should break. He smiled, as he had need To keep him sane: Sad Lincoln laughed! on mountain-side or plain Not any soldier did a braver deed. VI Last, all his duty done,-- All the dark bondmen freed, The long-sought leader found, the piteous victory won,-- Arrived for him one hour of April sun Wherein he breathed free as the forest again, In glad goodwill to men Nursing some vast forgiveness in his mind. Then--all turned blank and blind. Dare we remember the tragic lilac-time Crimsoned with that mad crime? Nay, hush! Ye have heard how sacrifice must close The supreme service; ’tis the way God chose. VII Ah, haply we, the native-born, And sprung of grandsires native too, Proud of soul this stately morn Would with his fame one race, one land indue; Would claim him ours, and ours alone, Flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, Inseparably our own! Ours by the English name, And that old England whence his forebears came, And that dear English of his tongue and pen; Mightier successor of our most mighty men; Ours, by his birth beneath our western sky, Ours, by the flag he died to save, Ours, by the home-fields of his labour, and by The home-earth of his grave! VIII