A March In The Ranks, Hard-prest

   A MARCH in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown;
   A route through a heavy wood, with muffled steps in the darkness;
   Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating;
   Till after midnight glimmer upon us, the lights of a dim-lighted
         building;
   We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted
         building;
   'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads--'tis now an impromptu
         hospital;
   --Entering but for a minute, I see a sight beyond all the pictures
         and poems ever made:
   Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and
         lamps,
   And by one great pitchy torch, stationary, with wild red flame, and
         clouds of smoke;
   By these, crowds, groups of forms, vaguely I see, on the floor, some
         in the pews laid down;                                       10
   At my feet more distinctly, a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of
         bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen;)
   I staunch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a
         lily;)
   Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene, fain to absorb
         it all;
   Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity,
         some of them dead;
   Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether,
         the odor of blood;
   The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms of soldiers--the yard
         outside also fill'd;
   Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the
         death-spasm sweating;
   An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls;
   The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the
         torches;
   These I resume as I chant--I see again the forms, I smell the
         odor;                                                        20
   Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, Fall in;
   But first I bend to the dying lad--his eyes open--a half-smile gives
         he me;
   Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness,
   Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,
   The unknown road still marching.