In an instant life would begin, life would be forever.
His eyes wavered. There was a thin noise in her ears,
A noise from the road. The instant fell and lay dead
Between them like something broken.
She turned to see what had killed it.
Lucy Weatherby, reining a bright bay mare,
Played with the braided lash of a riding-whip
And talked to Wingate’s father with smiling eyes,
While Huger Shepley tried to put in a word
And the whole troop clustered about her. Her habit was black
But she had a knot of bright ribbons pinned at her breast,
Red and blue—the Confederate colors. They had cheered her.
They had cheered her, riding along with her colored ribbons.
It was that which had killed the instant. Sally looked
At the face with the new moustache she had to remember.
“Goodbye,” she said. The face bent over her hand
And kissed it acceptably. Then the face had gone.
He was back with the others now. She watched for a minute.
Lucy was unpinning her knot of ribbons.
She saw a dozen hands go up for the knot
And Lucy laugh her sweet laugh and shake her bright head,
Glance once at Huger Shepley and once at Clay,
And then toss the colored knot to the guidon-bearer
Who grinned and tied the ribbons around the staff
While some of them cheered again. Then the horses moved.
They went by Lucy. Lucy was waving her hand.
She had tears in her eyes and was saying brave words to the soldiers.
Sally watched a back and a horse go out of sight.
She was tired, then.
When the troop had quite disappeared
Lucy rode up to the house. The two women kissed
And talked for a while about riding-habits and war.
“I just naturally love every boy in the Black Horse Troop,
Don’t you, Sally darling? They’re all so nice and polite,
Quite like our Virginia boys, and the Major’s a dear,
And that nice little one with the guidon is perfectly sweet.
You ought to have heard what he said when I gave him the knot.
Though, of course, I can tell why you didn’t come down to the road,
War’s terrible, isn’t it? All those nice boys going off—
I feel just the way you do, darling—we just have to show them
Whenever we can that we know they are fighting for us,
Fighting for God and the South and the cause of the right—
‘Law, Chile, don’t you fret about whether you’s pretty or plain,
You just do what you kin, and the good Lawd’ll brighten your tracks.’
That’s what my old mammy would tell me when I was knee-high
And I always remember and just try to do what I can
For the boys and the wounded and—well, that’s it, isn’t it, dear?
We’ve all got to do what we can in this horrible war.”
Sally agreed that we had, and drank from a cup.
She thought. “Lucy Weatherby. Yes. I must look for a doll.
I must make a doll with your face, an image of wax.
I must call that doll by your name.”
Now the scene expands, we must look at the scene as a whole.
How are the gameboards chalked and the pieces set?
There is an Eastern game and a Western game.
In the West, blue armies try to strangle the long
Snake of the Mississippi with iron claws;
Buell and Grant against Bragg and Beauregard.
They have hold of the head of the snake where it touches the Gulf,
New Orleans is taken, the fangs of the forts drawn out,
The ambiguous Butler wins ambiguous fame
By issuing orders stating that any lady
Who insults a Union soldier in uniform
Shall be treated as a streetwalker plying her trade.
The orders are read and hated. The insults stop
But the ladies remember Butler for fifty years
And make a fabulous devil with pasteboard horns
—“Beast” Butler, the fiend who pilfered the silver spoons—
From a slightly-tarnished, crude-minded, vain politician
Who loved his wife and ached to be a great man.
You were not wise with the ladies, Benjamin Butler,
It has been disproved that you stole New Orleans spoons
But the story will chime at the ribs of your name and stain it,
Ghost-silver, clinking against the ribs of a ghost,
As long as the ladies have tongues. Napoleon was wiser
But he could not silence one ugly, clever De Staël.
Make war on the men—the ladies have too-long memories.
The head of the snake is captured—the tail gripped fast—
But the body in between still writhes and resists,
Vicksburg is still unfallen—Grant not yet master—
Sheridan, Sherman, Thomas still in the shadow.
The eyes of the captains are fixed on the Eastern game,
The presidents—and the watchers oversea—
For there are the two defended kings of the board,
Muddy Washington, with its still-unfinished Capitol,
Sprawling, badly-paved, beset with sharp hogs
That come to the very doorsteps and grunt for crumbs,
Full of soldiers and clerks, full of all the baggage of war,
“Bombproof” officers, veterans back on leave,
Recruits, spies, spies on the spies, politicians, contractors,
Reporters, slackers, ambassadors, bands and harlots,
Negro-boys who organize butting-matches
To please the recruits, tattooers and fortune-tellers,
Rich man, poor man, soldier, beggarman, thief,
And one most lonely man in a drafty White House
Whose everlasting melancholy runs
Like a deep stream under the funny stories,
The parable-maker, humble in many things
But seldom humble with his fortitude,
The sorrowful man who cracked the sure-fire jokes,
Roared over Artemus Ward and Orpheus C. Kerr
And drove his six cross mules with a stubborn hand.
He has lost a son, but he has no time to grieve for him.
He studies tactics now till late in the night
With the same painful, hewing industry
He put on studying law. McClellan comes,
McClellan goes, McClellan bustles and argues,
McClellan is too busy to see the President,
McClellan complains of this, complains of that,
The Government is not supporting him,
The Government cannot understand grand strategy,
The Government— McClellan feels abused.
McClellan is quite sincere and sometimes right.
They come to the lonely man about McClellan
With various tales. McClellan lacks respect,
McClellan dreams about a dictatorship,
McClellan does that and this. The lonely man
Listens to all the stories and remarks,
“If McClellan wins, I will gladly hold his horse.”
A hundred miles away in an arrow-line
Lies the other defended king of the giant chess,
Broad-streeted Richmond. All the baggage of war
Is here as well, the politicians, the troops,
The editors who scream at the government,
The slackers, the good and the bad, but the flavor is different:
There is
