I.
Man is born on a battle-field. Round him, to rend Or resist, the dread Powers he displaces attend, By the cradle which Nature, amidst the stern shocks That have shatter'd creation, and shapen it, rocks.
He leaps with a wail into being; and lo!
His own mother, fierce Nature herself, is his foe.
Her whirlwinds are roused into wrath o'er his head:
'Neath his feet roll her earthquakes: her solitudes spread To daunt him: her forces dispute his command:
Her snows fall to freeze him: her suns burn to brand:
Her seas yawn to engulf him: her rocks rise to crush:
And the lion and leopard, allied, lurk to rush On their startled invader.
In lone Malabar, Where the infinite forest spreads breathless and far, 'Mid the cruel of eye and the stealthy of claw (Striped and spotted destroyers!) he sees, pale with awe, On the menacing edge of a fiery sky, Grim Doorga, blue-limb'd and red-handed, go by, And the first thing he worships is Terror.
Anon, Still impell'd by necessity hungrily on, He conquers the realms of his own self-reliance, And the last cry of fear wakes the first of defiance.
From the serpent he crushes its poisonous soul;
Smitten down in his path see the dead lion roll!
On toward Heaven the son of Alcmena strides high on The heads of the Hydra, the spoils of the lion:
And man, conquering terror, is worshipp'd by man.
A camp has the world been since first it began!
From his tents sweeps the roving Arabian; at peace, A mere wandering shepherd that follows the fleece;
But, warring his way through a world's destinies, Lo from Delhi, from Bagdadt, from Cordova, rise Domes of empiry, dower'd with science and art, Schools, libraries, forums, the palace, the mart!
New realms to man's soul have been conquer'd. But those Forthwith they are peopled for man by new foes!
The stars keep their secrets, the earth hides her own, And bold must the man be that braves the Unknown!
Not a truth has to art or to science been given, But brows have ached for it, and souls toil'd and striven;
And many have striven, and many have fail'd, And many died, slain by the truth they assail'd, But when Man hath tamed Nature, asserted his place And dominion, behold! he is brought face to face With a new foe--himself!
Nor may man on his shield Ever rest, for his foe is ever afield, Danger ever at hand, till the armed Archangel Sound o'er him the trump of earth's final evangel.
II.
Silence straightway, stern Muse, the soft cymbals of pleasure, Be all bronzen these numbers, and martial the measure!
Breathe, sonorously breathe, o'er the spirit in me One strain, sad and stern, of that deep Epopee Which thou, from the fashionless cloud of far time, Chantest lonely, when Victory, pale, and sublime In the light of the aureole over her head, Hears, and heeds not the wound in her heart fresh and red.
Blown wide by the blare of the clarion, unfold The shrill clanging curtains of war!
And behold A vision!
The antique Heraclean seats;
And the long Black Sea billow that once bore those fleets, Which said to the winds, "Be ye, too, Genoese!"
And the red angry sands of the chafed Cheronese;
And the two foes of man, War and Winter, allied Round the Armies of England and France, side by side Enduring and dying (Gaul and Briton abreast!)
Where the towers of the North fret the skies of the East.
III.
Since that sunrise which rose through the calm linden stems O'er Lucile and Eugene, in the garden of Ems, Through twenty-five seasons encircling the sun, This planet of ours on its pathway hath gone, And the fates that I sing of have flowed with the fates Of a world, in the red wake of war, round the gates Of that doom'd and heroical city, in which (Fire crowning the rampart, blood bathing the ditch!), At bay, fights the Russian as some hunted bear, Whom the huntsmen have hemm'd round at last in his lair.
IV.
A fang'd, arid plain, sapp'd with underground fire, Soak'd with snow, torn with shot, mash'd to one gory mire!
There Fate's iron scale hangs in horrid suspense, While those two famished ogres--the Siege, the Defence, Face to face, through a vapor frore, dismal, and dun, Glare, scenting the breath of each other.
The one Double-bodied, two-headed--by separate ways Winding, serpent-wise, nearer; the other, each day's Sullen toil adding size to,--concentrated, solid, Indefatigable--the brass-fronted, embodied, And audible [Greek text omitted] gone sombrely forth To the world from that Autocrat Will of the north!
V.
In the dawn of a moody October, a pale Ghostly motionless vapor began to prevail Over city and camp; like the garment of death Which (is formed by) the face it conceals.
'Twas the breath War, yet drowsily yawning, began to suspire;
Wherethrough, here and there, flash'd an eye of red fire, And closed, from some rampart beginning to bellow Hoarse challenge; replied to anon, through the yellow And sulphurous twilight: till day reel'd and rock'd And roar'd into dark. Then the midnight was mock'd With fierce apparitions. Ring'd round by a rain Of red fire, and of iron, the murtherous plain Flared with fitful combustion; where fitfully fell Afar off the fatal, disgorged scharpenelle, And fired the horizon, and singed the coil'd gloom With wings of swift flame round that City of Doom.
VI.
So the day--so the night! So by night, so by day, With stern patient pathos, while time wears away, In the trench flooded through, in the wind where it wails, In the snow where it falls, in the fire where it hails Shot and shell--link by link, out of hardship and pain, Toil, sickness, endurance, is forged the bronze chain Of those terrible siege-lines!
No change to that toil Save the mine's sudden leap from the treacherous soil.
Save the midnight attack, save the groans of the maim'd, And Death's daily obolus due, whether claim'd By man or by nature.
VII.
Time passes. The dumb, Bitter, snow-bound, and sullen November is come.
And its snows have been bathed in the blood of the brave;
And many a young heart has glutted the grave:
