With his gun on his shoulder, his phantom-sons at heel,
His eyes like misty coals.
A dead man saw him striding at Seven Pines,
The bullets whistling through him like a torn flag,
A madman saw him whetting a sword on a Bible,
A cloud above Malvern Hill.
But these are all lies. He slumbers. He does not stir.
The spring rains and the winter snows on his slumber
And the bones of his flesh breed armies and yet more armies
But he himself does not stir.
It will take more than cannon to shake his fortress,
His song is alive and throbs in the tramp of the columns,
His song is smoke blown out of the mouth of a cannon,
But his song and he are two.
The South goes ever forward, the slave is not free,
The great stone gate of the Union crumbles and totters,
The cotton-blossoms are pushing the blocks apart,
The roots of cotton grow in the crevices,
(John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave.)
Soon the fight will be over, the slaves will be slaves forever.
(John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave.)
You did not fight for the Union or wish it well,
You fought for the single dream of a man unchained
And God’s great chariot rolling. You fought like the thrown
Stone, but the fighters have forgotten your dream.
(John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave.)
You fought for a people you did not comprehend,
For a symbol chained by a symbol in your own mind,
But, unless you arise, that people will not be free.
Are there no seeds of thunder left in your bones
Except to breed useless armies?
(John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave.)
Arise, John Brown,
Call up your sons from the ground,
In smoky wreaths, call up your sons to heel,
Call up the clumsy country boys you armed
With crazy pikes and a fantastic mind.
Call up the American names,
Kagi, the self-taught scholar, quiet and cool,
Stevens, the cashiered soldier, bawling his song,
Dangerfield Newby, the freed Scotch-mulatto,
Watson and Oliver Brown and all the hard-dying.
Call up the slug-riddled dead of Harper’s Ferry
And cast them down the wind on a raid again.
This is the dark hour,
This is the ebb-tide,
This is the sunset, this is the defeat.
The cotton-blossoms are growing up to the sky,
The great stone gate of the Union sinks beneath them,
And under the giant blossoms lies Egypt’s land,
The dark river,
The ground of bondage,
The chained men.
If the great gate falls, the cotton grows over your dream.
Find your heart, John Brown,
(A-mouldering in the grave.)
Call your sons and get your pikes,
(A-mouldering in the grave.)
Your song goes on, but the slave is still a slave,
And all Egypt’s land rides Northward while you moulder in the grave!
Rise up, John Brown,
(A-mouldering in the grave.)
Go down, John Brown,
(Against all Egypt’s land)
Go down, John Brown,
Go down, John Brown,
Go down, John Brown, and set that people free!
Book V
It was still hot in Washington, that September,
Hot in the city, hot in the White House rooms,
Desiccate heat, dry as a palmleaf fan,
That makes hot men tuck cotton handkerchiefs
Between their collars and their sweaty necks,
And Northern girls look limp at half-past-four,
Waiting the first cool breath that will not come
For hours yet. The sentinel on post
Clicks back and forth, stuffed in his sweltering coat,
And dreams about brown bottles of cold beer
Deep in a cellar. In the crowded Bureaus
The pens move slow, the damp clerks watch the clock.
Women in houses take their corsets off
And stifle in loose gowns. They could lie down
But when they touch the bed, the bed feels hot,
And there are things to do. The men will want
Hot food when they come back from work. They sigh
And turn, with dragging feet, to the hot kitchens.
Sometimes they pause, and push a window up
To feel the blunt, dry buffet of the heat
Strike in the face and hear the locust-cry
Of shrilling newsboy-voices down the street,
“News from the army—extra—ter‑ble battle—
Terr‑r‑ble vic’try—ter‑r‑ble defeat—
Lee’s army trapped invading Maryland—
McClellan—Sharpsburg—fightin’—news from the front—”
The women at the windows sigh and wonder
“I ought to buy a paper—No, I’ll wait
Till Tom gets home—I wonder if it’s true—
Terrible victory—terrible defeat—
They’re always saying that—when Tom gets home
He’ll have some news—I wonder if the army—
No, it’s too hot to buy a paper now—”
A hot, spare day of waiting languidly
For contradictory bits of dubious news.
It was a little cooler, three miles out,
Where the tall trees shaded the Soldiers’ Home.
The lank man, Abraham Lincoln, found it so,
Glad for it, doubtless, though his cavernous eyes
Had stared all day into a distant fog
Trying to pierce it. “General McClellan
Is now in touch with Lee in front of Sharpsburg
And will attack as soon as the fog clears.”
It’s cleared by now. They must be fighting now.
We can’t expect much from the first reports.
Stanton and Halleck think they’re pretty good
But you can’t tell. Nobody here can tell.
We’re all too far away. You get sometimes
Feeling as if you heard the guns yourself
Here in the room and felt them shake the house
When you keep waiting for the news all day.
I wish we’d get some news. Bull Run was first.
We got the news of Bull Run soon enough.
First that we’d won, hands down, which was a lie,
And then the truth. It may be that today.
I told McClellan not to let them go,
Destroy them if he could—but you can’t tell.
He’s a good man in lots of different ways,
But he can’t seem to finish what he starts
And then, he’s jealous, like the rest of them,
Lets Pope get beaten, wanted him to fail,
Because he don’t like Pope. I put him back
Into command. What else was there to do?
Nobody else could lick those troops in shape.
But, if he wins, and lets Lee get away,
I’m done with him. Bull Run—the Seven Days—
Bull Run again—and eighteen months of war—
And still no end to it. What is God’s will?
They come to me and talk about God’s will
In righteous deputations and platoons,
Day after day, laymen and ministers.
They write me Prayers From Twenty Million Souls
Defining me God’s will and Horace Greeley’s.
God’s will is General This and Senator That,
God’s will is those poor colored fellows’ will,
It is the will of the Chicago churches,
It is this man’s and his worst enemy’s.
But all of them are
