SOLDIERS OF THE
LIGHT

BY
HELEN GRAY CONE

BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
1911

Copyright, 1910, by Helen Gray Cone

All Rights Reserved

Many of the poems included in this volume are used through the courteous permission of the editors of The Century Magazine, The Churchman, The Atlantic Monthly, and Scribner’s Magazine, where they originally appeared.

The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.

CONTENTS

“Why of War, O thou that lovest rather

Peace of roses in a rain-sweet garden,

Peace of moonlit silver-heaving waters,

All the lovely looks of little children?

What strange mandate

Bids thee sing of War, who lovest these things?

“How of War, O faint-heart, thou that grievest

Over every gentle creature wounded,

All soft eyes of pain and puzzled sorrow,

All the lithe limbs marred, the wild wings broken?

What black magic

Makes thee brood on War, who dreadest these things?

“Is it but the haunting of the bugles,

Floating memories of the war-time bugles

Blowing over those far fields of childhood,

Pleasant in the foolish ear of childhood,

When the sword-hilt

Seemed but made to shine and hold a jewel?”

Then the inward Voice that gave the mandate,—

Bade me sing of battle,—bade me answer:

Well I know the symbol of the sword-hilt,

Know the Cross of sacrifice and service;

See the heart’s-blood

Burning where the child beheld the jewel.

I have hated with the perfect hatred

All the work of Hell in all the ages;

Hated all the hate and all the horror;

Yet the Vision of the Face of faces,

God-in-Manhood,

Shines through Hell, and I have seen the Vision.

In this rubric, lo, the Past is lettered:

Strike the red words out, we strike the glory.

Leave the sacred color on the pages,

Pages of the Past that teach the Future.

On that scripture

Yet shall young souls take the oath of service.

God end War! but when brute War is ended,

Yet there shall be many a noble soldier,

Many a noble battle worth the winning,

Many a hopeless battle worth the losing.

Life is battle,

Life is battle, even to the sunset.

Soldiers of the Light shall strive forever,

In the wards of pain, the ways of labor,

In the stony deserts of the city,

In the hives where greed has housed the helpless;

Patient, valiant,

Fighting with the powers of death and darkness.

Make us mingle in that heavenly warfare;

Call us through the throats of all brave bugles

Blown on fields foregone by lips forgotten;

Nerve us with the courage of lost comrades,

Gird us, lead us,

Thou, O Prince of Peace and God of Battles!

THE THIRD DAY AT GETTYSBURG

I

Stand we awhile at gaze, in the Place of the Battle of Battles:

High on the hill at the south, where over the fair-lying farmland

Warren keeps watch in bronze, here under the sky of the summer

Stand we awhile at gaze, far-scanning the roads and the ridges,

Doubtful that such things were.

Oh, sweet with the wafts of the wildrose,

Sweet is the breath of the summer, the hushed spirit lapping and lulling!

Man feels near to the kind red earth; as her nursling she draws him

Close, ah close, to the fragrant warmth of her Indian bosom.

Deep he drinks of life; and death is a dream in the distance.

Rare is the sweet of the summer; the good world’s bounty and beauty

Such as they saw and lost, who bought us our peace with their passion.

Such, on the great Three Days of the great Third Year of the war-time,

Lay this pleasant land, with the long South Mountain to westward;

Blue these billowing hills circled it, friendly enfolded,

Lucent in sun, or dark with the shadows of clouds floating over;

Silvered with ghostly gray of the rains, in their soft-footed marches

Melting away and passing, and leaving the blue in the sunlight.

So the farmland lay, with the yellow gleam of its wheatfields,

Green of the standing corn, a-glisten in beauteous battalions,

Pastures with dreaming cattle, and tawny streams where they loiter,

Dark-green orchard slopes, and the small white houses of farmers.

So lay the little town, with its brick-paved walks and its alleys,

Garden-glimpses fair, with the faint-blue hills for a background,

Over the whitewashed fences the rosy hollyhocks leaning;

Fate-shadowed, sleeping town, in its listless grasp as it slumbered

Holding the reins of power, the gathered reins of the roadways

Stretched to the north and south, to the northwest and northeast and southeast,

Roadways half a score, in the grasp of the fate-shadowed sleeper,—

Reins of power indeed, should a strong hand suddenly seize them!

What strong hand should seize? Swift-reaching, and sinewed with iron,

Masterful hand of Lee, great Captain, intrepid invader?

Far-away cities feared. Or, haply, hand new to the wielding

One huge host as a sword, untried in its strength or its weakness,

Unknown hand of Meade, at the southward uncertainly groping?

Stirred with a dream of dread was the little town as it slumbered;

Sudden it started and woke.

—Through the hush of the young, hot morning

One sharp shot, and another—and born was the Battle of Battles!

Long had the good land lain in the sun and the rain, with its ridges,

Rich broad fields for the farmer, and hills dark-fledged with the forests;

Yet was the end ordained of the old earth’s writhing and travail

Neither the breathing beauty of grainfields, nor wealth of the harvest,

Neither the brooding charm of the wood, nor the trees for the builder;

Not for these was the earth-pang; for Pain, for Pain sacrificial

Offered to God; for the altar whereon Man blindly or wisely

Laid, for the Faith that was in him, his body born of a woman,

Laid, in his passion of service, the life of his own blood-brother,—

Even for that Altar august had the ridges and hills from aforetime

Waited, elect. So of old, under Syrian azure, and burning

Stars of that ancient land, grew a great Tree, branched like another;

Soared to its height, and waited, elect for the Cross of all crosses.

Now was arrived the hour, and the stern supreme dedication,

Sealing the brow of the land for the Place of the Battle of Battles.

II

Twice had the sun gone down on the conflict as yet undetermined.

Two fierce days were done, and the marred earth cumbered with horror,

Horror of soulless pain of the beasts that perish unknowing,

Horror of human ruin, the shattered sheaths of the spirit,

Horror men pray to forget, and the tongue refuses to tell it.

Two proud days were done, that shall shine with the splendors of valor

Out of the night of the past, and live with the life of the nation:

Splendors that crowd like stars—how the names press faster and faster!

Splendors that melt like stars in the milkwhite highway of heaven,

Fame without name, and the deeds remembered of doers forgotten.

Two strange days were done; for Fate on the echoing anvil,

Clashing with blow upon blow, had fashioned a strength out of failure,

Craftily forging in fire and clangor the Line of the Union,

Battle-line hard to break. It was curved like the hook of the fisher,

Rough Culp’s Hill the barb, and the Hill of the Graves was the curving;

Straight as a shaft it stretched to the tawny stream at the southward,—

Running then red,—and the rocks of the rude-piled Den of the Devil,

Round-Top the Less, and the flank of the Greater, fledged with the forest,

Fortresses fit for the Left. So the Line had been forged out of failure,

Battle-line hard to break.

Yet sick were the souls of the leaders,

Burdened with pity and loss; the field with unspeakable anguish

Groaned to the large clear moon; might the army abide such a morrow?

Cautious courageous Meade, not playing with lives as with counters,

Held his commanders in council, retracing, unweaving the war-web,

Shifting the fiery threads. At the last, it was brought to the question.

Was it retreat that slept in the brazen throats of the bugles?

Each after each answered No; Newton and Gibbon and Birney,

Williams and Sedgwick and Sykes, Slocum and Howard and Hancock,

Soul-sick with pity and loss, yet steadily acting the soldier,

Man after man answered No. They were all one will; and their Captain

Gripped the huge host as a sword, that was utterly his for the wielding.

—So the warm bright night drew on to the Day of decision.

III

Day crept wan on the world. ’Twas the hour when the birds in the branches

One after one awake, in the dewy cool and the dimness,

Small sweet voices of joy, praising the sunlight that shall be.

Silvery the hour, and a semblance of death in the birth of the morning;

Sacred the sunless hour; now rent, as the veil of the temple,

All that silver spell. In the dewy cool of the coverts

Sounded no voices of birds; but the whistling hiss of the bullet,

Ruffling volley on volley, and yell of the South, and the angry

Roar of the strong hurrah from the throats of the soldiers of Slocum,

There on the rough sheer steep, in the thick of the Culp’s Hill woodlands,

There on the rock-strewn plain, till the sun stared hot on the struggle,

Jealously battling to wrest, from the grasp of a blindfold victor,

Vantage but half discerned, and a foothold found in the darkness:

Brave was the blindfold victor, and fiercely he clung to his foothold;

Almost he groped to the prize, to the gleam of the hard white highway

On to Baltimore sweeping, the one sure outlet of safety;

Almost he chanced with his hand on the close-hoarded power of the powder:

Brave and blind, or beholding too late, on the plain and the hillside,

Seven vain hours he fought; then reeling let go the advantage,

Fell back panting and foiled. Once again in its rugged intrenchments

Rested the Corps of the Star; on the field rested many forever.

So sped the morn on the Right.

IV

But the Left lay still, as enchanted:

Two huge armies outstretched, and between them the undulant valley

Basking broad, as asleep; only now and again through the quiet

Ripped the skirmishers’ rifles, a crackle increasing, then ceasing;

Now and again from the Right came the rolling rumors of battle

Echoing far, but disturbed not the dream of the armies enchanted:

Ceased at the last all sound, and the magical slumber was deepened.

So the bright hot day drew on to the noontide, and passed it.

Scarce had the old-fashioned clocks, in the farmhouses hushed, apprehensive,—

Equably telling the tale of the fire-wingèd minutes that fleeted

Bearing the death of men, as in days of peace, when the minutes

Bore but the blessing of toil, and a sleep with its face to the morrow,

—Scarce had the clocks struck One, when the deep-toned boom of the cannon,—

Hark, it was twice!—on the ridge that was held by the Southron, gave signal:

Boom, boom, boom after boom to the right, to the left, in the centre;

Cloud, cloud, cloud after cloud, white smoke-clouds that sprang out and hung there,

Massing, concealing, yet severed again and again by the flame-gush.

Now from the heights of the Union the batteries thundered their answer,

Boom, boom, boom after boom, from the right and the left and the centre,

Surf on a winter-bound coast, a tempestuous roaring incessant.

Piercingly rose as a cry, on that ground of vast sound elemental,

Scream of the travailing shells as they burst o’er the cloud-covered valley.

Trembled the solid earth, as she thrills in the throes of the earthquake;

Prickled the sulphurous air with the demon-breath of the powder;

Fainted the hearts of men at the endless unbearable clamor;

Filled were the heaven and the earth with the clang of that duel of iron:

Such they beheld not before, and heard not,—a combat of giants!

What did it mean on the earth? Stark terror and blood and confusion;

Shriek of the battery-horses, and hell-blaze of caissons exploding;

Reel of the torn cannoneer as he suddenly drops by his cannon,

Spring of the quick volunteer to snatch from his dead hand the rammer;

Orderlies galloping past, and a rumor of somewhat a-brewing:

Crouching of soldiers in gray, at the rear, in the underwoods’ flicker,—

Charge? we shall charge by and by? then a pipe of Virginia tobacco!

Over their heads as they lie, by the trunks of the fallen trees pillowed,

Jesting and resting an hour, come showering the boughs of the saplings.

Crouching of soldiers in blue, at the front, by the walls and the fences,

Waiting a charge—will they charge? and the brown fingers lock on the musket;

Sharply a rifle-gun bolt rips up the ground underneath him.

There in the field on the slope is a bellow of suffering cattle,

Out by the farmgate yonder, a tangle and mangle of horses;

Shells through the farmhouse roof, where the green moss grew on the shingles;

Shattered the apple-tree now, where the robin would sing at the sunset;

Shall there be song again, in a world given over to devils?

Shattered the stones of the dead, and about them the shapes of the dying;

Boom, boom, boom after boom to the right, to the left, in the centre,

Endless—will it be endless? and how shall the spirit endure it?

What did it mean in the heaven? Ah surely, black lips of the cannon,

Surely you spake in your wrath, and the soul of the world understood you!

Else it were horror indeed, and the blind brute rage of the jungle,

Earth returning to slime, and the hissing and tearing of dragons!

Guns of the Gettysburg heights, ye spake, in your awful contending,

Words ye spake through the cloud, with august oracular voices,

Mighty reverberant watchwords of Titan-forces in conflict:

Crying, “The feuds of States!” and replying, “The peace of a Nation!”

Crying, “The sundered stars!” and replying, “The heavens in their clusters

Led in the lines of law, and linked in their differing glory

Star unto star to the end, until God folds them up as a vesture!”

Crying, “The old-time pride, and the chivalrous grace and the splendor,

Feudal rule of the Few, and a serfdom meet for the Many!”

Thundering out of the cloud, as the Voice on the summit of Sinai,

“Nay! But the larger Hope, and the limitless future of Manhood!”

These were the words that ye uttered, O hot black lips of the cannon,

Catching them up from the lips of the orators fallen on silence,

Voices of lion-like men, in senates no longer resounding;

Now the debate was yours: and above it, the Arbiter waited!

V

Slowly the men of the South, outstretched in the underwoods’ flicker,

Jesting and resting an hour,—the close-coupled, war-welded comrades,

Hollow-cheeked veteran boys, unsubduable gaunt gray elders,

Garbed in gray or in butternut-brown, the old rustical earth-hue,—

Slowly, half-stunned, they arose, made aware of a lull in the tumult.

Then through the ranks as they closed, like a thrill through a tense-drawn bowstring,

Passed a wild whisper of joy. Is it true? are the batteries crippled

There on the Hill of the Graves, and the long ridge held by the Union?

Silenced at last and spent? and the Gray Chief raises his field-glass,

He of the ardent eyes and the beard with its gracious silver,

Leader beloved, Lee, in designing and daring a master.

Gone from the Hill of the Graves are the guns with their merciless menace;

Now from the smoke-reeking ridge the voices gigantic respond not:

This is the moment indeed; it is big with the fate of the battle!

Well are they skilled what to do, his war-seasoned faithful commanders,

Longstreet, and Ambrose Hill, and Pickett the soldier intrepid

Leading invincible veterans, chosen, the flower of the army.

(Yet, O that Jackson were here, with his blue eyes wild and exalted,

Soldier-saint of the South, to be sharer of all that is coming,

As in the past he shared triumph and council and crisis,

Bivouac-fire in the pines, and the sleep on the brown pine-needles—

O that he too were here, who has crossed the River, and sweetly

Rests in no earthly shade, and returns not to conflict or council!)

This is the moment indeed: it is big with the fate of the battle

That is big with the fate of the world!

Drawing rein at the station of Longstreet,

Eagerly springs from the saddle George Pickett the soldier intrepid,

Face fire-red with his hope and his haste, and the lion-shaggy

Mane of his cavalier locks tossed with the rush of his riding.

“Charge? do we charge?” So he stands.

—As over the slope of a mountain

Glooms a shadow broad, and the birds in the forest stop singing,

Darkens with secret foreboding the visage of Longstreet the leader;

Shadow hangs on his soul, and his lips are locked; yet reluctant

Bows he his beard on his breast.

It is done; and the moment returns not.

VI

Crouching meanwhile at the front, by the low stone walls and the fences

There on the opposite ridge, the soldiers of Hays and of Gibbon,—

Every man soldierly-proud of the Trefoil he wore on his cap-crown,

Were it of white or of blue, the Trefoil that told he was Hancock’s,—

Crouching expectant and grim, in the roar of that great cannonading,

Broke into cheer after cheer: with the flag of the Trefoil behind him,

Rode the corps-commander, reviewing the line of his legions,

Knowing men’s need of a man. In the fury of sound, and the frantic

Shriek of the battery horses, and hell-blaze of caissons exploding,

Reared the black charger he rode; yet persisted the resolute rider,

Masterful, mounted afresh; and along the line ran the murmur,

Flame on a dry field’s edge, “Hancock, it’s Hancock!” and freshly

Kindled the cheer as he passed.

So they lay in the line, with the muskets

Clutched in the hard hands, ready; the men of New York and New Jersey,

Delaware’s sons, and Maine’s, and the close-coupled, war-welded comrades,

Stalwart Michigan men and the soldiers of old Massachusetts.