“I was in de Crater, boss,” he said with a dull
Stain in his voice. “You mebbe heard about us.
You mebbe heard of de Crater at Petersburg.
I doan’ like thinkin’ about it. You need a fiel’-han’?”
Jake thought for a moment. “Crater,” he said at last.
“Yuh, I heard about that Crater.” The wind blew on,
Hurting his arm. “I wasn’t to there,” he said.
“I knew some boys that was there.” The negro said,
“I’d work for my keep, boss, honest. I knows a team.
I knows how to work. I got hurt bad in de Crater
But I knows how to work a farm.” He coughed and was dumb.
Jake looked at him as he might have looked at a horse,
Measuringly. “I ain’t runnin’ a hospital,”
He said, in an aggrieved voice. “You was to the Crater.
I seen the way you colored folks farm down South.
It ain’t no way to farm. You ought to be et.
We’ll eat you up to the house when it’s mealin’-time.
I don’t know where we’ll sleep you. How do I know
You can work your keep?” The negro said nothing at all.
His eyes had resumed their darkness. “Huddup!” said Jake,
As the team swung round. “Dat’s ploughin’!” the negro said.
Jake spat. “The woman’ll fix you a snack to eat
If you holler the house.” The negro shook his head.
“I’ll wait till you’s done furrowin’, boss,” he said.
“Mebbe I kin help you unhitch when it’s time for dat.”
“Well,” said Jake, “I ain’t payin’ a hired man much.”
“Dey call me Spade,” said the negro. The plough went on.
The negro watched it, cutting the furrow clean.
Jack Ellyat, an old cudgel in his fist,
Walked from the town, one day of melting ice,
Past fields still patched with old snow but warm in the sun,
His heart and mind being something like those fields. …
Behind him, in the town, the spangled flags
Still fluttered or hung limp for fallen Richmond,
And here or there, in corners, you could see
The burst firecracker-cases, rotten with rain,
The guttered stumps of torches flung away
And other odds and ends of celebration
Not yet swept up. The old cannon in the Square
Still had a blackened mouth from its salutes,
The little boys would not be good all week
And everything wore airs of Monday morning. …
Jack Ellyat, remembering it all,
Was glad enough when he got past the houses
And could see nothing but the road ahead
Going up hills and down. “It’s over now.
Finished for good. Well, I was part of it.
Well, it is over.” When he reached the crest
Of the Long Hill, he paused and felt the wind
Blow on his face, and leaned upon his stick,
Gazing at troubled Spring. He carried still
Wounds of a sort, some healed into the scars
And some that hardly would be healed awhile,
Being in stuff few surgeries can reach,
But he was well enough, although the wind
Felt colder than it had in other Springs.
“Oh, yes,” he thought, “I guess that I’m all right.
I guess I’m lucky. I remember once
Coming along this road with poor old Ned
Before they fired on Sumter. Well, it’s over.
I was a part of it.” He flipped a stone
Down toward the hill and watched it strike and strike
And then lie quiet, while his mind recalled
The long, white, bloodless months of getting well
And the strange feel of first civilian clothes.
Well, that was over, too, and he was back,
And everybody knew he’d settled down,
Only he couldn’t stand it any more.
He had a picture of Melora’s face,
Dim with long looking-at, a carried image,
He tried to see it now, but it was faint.
He’d tried to find her but he couldn’t find her.
Couldn’t get any news while he was sick,
And then, at last, the news that they were gone—
That and no more—and nobody knew where.
He saw the clock upon the mantelpiece
Back in the house, ticking its fettered time
To fettered Phaëton. “I’ll settle down.
I will forget. I’ll wear my riddled coat
Fourth of Julys and have boys gape at me.
I’ll drink and eat and sleep, marry a girl;
Be a good lawyer, wear the hunger out.
I hardly knew her. It was years ago.
Why should the hunger stay? A dozen men
Might find a dozen girls and lose them so
And never once think of it, but perhaps
As a dim fragrance, lost with their first youth,
A seashell in a box of cedarwood,
A silver mist that vanished with the day.
It was such years ago. She must have changed.
I know that I have changed. We find such things
And lose them, and must live in spite of it.
Only a fool goes looking for the wind
That blew across his heartstrings yesterday,
Or breaks his hands in the obscure attempt
To dig the knotted roots of Time apart,
Hoping to resurrect the golden mask
Of the lost year inviolate from the ground.
Only a fool drives horses in the sky.”
And here he was, out walking on this road
For no more reason than a crazy yarn
Just heard, about some gipsy travellers
Going through towns and looking for a soldier.
And even and supposing it were she …
He saw Melora walking down from the wood
With the sun behind her, low in the western cloud.
He saw the long shadow that her slight body made.
The fetters fell like straws from the clock of time.
The horses moved from the gate. This life, this burning,
This fictive war that is over, this toy death,
These were the pictures of Phaëton. This is Phaëton.
He cast a final look down at the town,
Another at the fields still patched with snow.
The wind blew on his face. He moved away
Out toward the crossroads, where the wagons pass,
And when he got there, waited patiently
Under a windbreak of three twisted elms
Half-hidden from the road. “Find her,” he said.
“I guess we’ll go back West then. Well, that’s that.”
The wind burned at his flesh. He let it burn,
Staring at a lost year. So he perceived
A slow cart creaking up a slope of hill,
Drawn by a horse as gaunt as poverty
And driven by a woman with great eyes.
Edmund Ruffin, old Secessionist,
Firer of the first gun that rang against Sumter,
Walks in his garden now, in the evening-cool,
With a red, barred flag slung stiffly over one arm
And a silver-butted pistol in his right hand.
He has just heard of Lee’s surrender and
