Lucid, pure, and calm and blameless Dawned on Gettysburg the day That should make the spot, once fameless, Known to nations far away. Birds were caroling, and farmers Gladdened o'er their garnered hay, When the clank of gathering armors Broke the morning's peaceful sway; And the living lines of foemen Drawn o'er pasture, brook, and hill, Formed in figures weird of omen That should work with mystic will Measures of a direful magic-- Shattering, maiming--and should fill Glades and gorges with a tragic Madness of desire to kill. Skirmishers flung lightly forward Moved like scythemen skilled to sweep Westward o'er the field and nor'ward, Death's first harvest there to reap. You would say the soft, white smoke-puffs Were but languid clouds asleep, Here on meadows, there on oak-bluffs, Fallen foam of Heaven's blue deep. Yet that blossom-white outbreaking Smoke wove soon a martyr's shroud. Reynolds fell, with soul unquaking, Ardent-eyed and open-browed: Noble men in humbler raiment Fell where shot their graves had plowed, Dying not for paltry payment: Proud of home, of honor proud. IV Mute Seminary there, Filled once with resonant hymn and prayer, How your meek walls and windows shuddered then! Though Doubleday stemmed the flood, McPherson's Wood and Willoughby's Run Saw ere the set of sun The light of the gospel of blood. And, on the morrow again, Loud the unholy psalm of battle Burst from the tortured Devil's Den, In cries of men and musketry rattle Mixed with the helpless bellow of cattle Torn by artillery, down in the glen; While, hurtling through the branches Of the orchard by the road, Where Sickles and Birney were walled with steel, Shot fiery avalanches That shivered hope and made the sturdiest reel. Yet peach-bloom bright as April saw Blushed there anew, in blood that flowed O'er faces white with death-dealt awe; And ruddy flowers of warfare grew, Though withering winds as of the desert blew, Far at the right while Ewell and Early, Plunging at Slocum and Wadsworth and Greene, Thundered in onslaught consummate and surly; Till trembling nightfall crept between And whispered of rest from the heat of the whelming strife. But unto those forsaken of life What has the night to say? Silent beneath the moony sky, Crushed in a costly dew they lie: Deaf to plaint or paean, they:-- Freed from Earth's dull tyranny. V