| |
| “COME a little nearer, Doctor,—thank you,—let me take the cup; | |
| Draw your chair up,—draw it closer,—just another little sup! | |
| May be you may think I ’m better; but I ’m pretty well used up,— | |
| Doctor, you ’ve done all you could do, but I ’m just a going up! | |
| |
| “Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain’t much use to try”— | 5 |
| “Never say that,” said the surgeon, as he smothered down a sigh; | |
| “It will never do, old comrade, for a soldier to say die!” | |
| “What you say will make no difference, Doctor, when you come to die. | |
| |
| “Doctor, what has been the matter?” “You were very faint, they say; | |
| You must try to get to sleep now.” “Doctor, have I been away?” | 10 |
| “Not that anybody knows of!” “Doctor,—Doctor, please to stay! | |
| There is something I must tell you, and you won’t have long to stay! | |
| |
| “I have got my marching orders, and I ’m ready now to go; | |
| Doctor, did you say I fainted?—but it could n’t ha’ been so,— | |
| For as sure as I ’m a Sergeant, and was wounded at Shiloh, | 15 |
| I ’ve this very night been back there, on the old field of Shiloh! | |
| |
| “This is all that I remember: The last time the Lighter came, | |
| And the lights had all been lowered, and the noises much the same, | |
| He had not been gone five minutes before something called my name: | |
| ‘Orderly Sergeant—Robert Burton!’—just that way it called my name. | 20 |
| |
| “And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so slow, | |
| Knew it could n’t be the Lighter,—he could not have spoken so,— | |
| And I tried to answer, ‘Here, sir!’ but I could n’t make it go; | |
| For I could n’t move a muscle, and I could n’t make it go! | |
| |
| “Then I thought: It ’s all a nightmare, all a humbug and a bore; | 25 |
| Just another foolish grape-vine, 1—and it won’t come any more; | |
| But it came, sir, notwithstanding, just the same way as before: | |
| ‘Orderly Sergeant—Robert Burton!’—even plainer than before. | |
| |
| “That is all that I remember, till a sudden burst of light, | |
| And I stood beside the river, where we stood that Sunday night, | 30 |
| Waiting to be ferried over to the dark bluffs opposite, | |
| When the river was perdition and all hell was opposite! | |
| |
| “And the same old palpitation came again in all its power, | |
| And I heard a bugle sounding, as from some celestial tower; | |
| And the same mysterious voice said: ‘It is the eleventh hour! | 35 |
| Orderly Sergeant—Robert Burton—it is the eleventh hour!’ | |
| |
| “Doctor Austin! what day is this?” “It is Wednesday night, you know.” | |
| “Yes,—to-morrow will be New Year’s, and a right good time below! | |
| What time is it, Doctor Austin?” “Nearly twelve.” “Then don’t you go! | |
| Can it be that all this happened—all this—not an hour ago! | 40 |
| |
| “There was where the gunboats opened on the dark rebellious host; | |
| And where Webster semicircled his last guns upon the coast; | |
| There were still the two log-houses, just the same, or else their ghost,— | |
| And the same old transport came and took me over,—or its ghost! | |
| |
| “And the old field lay before me all deserted far and wide; | 45 |
| There was where they fell on Prentiss,—there McClernand met the tide; | |
| There was where stern Sherman rallied, and where Hurlbut’s heroes died,— | |
| Lower down, where Wallace charged them, and kept charging till he died. | |
| |
| “There was where Lew Wallace showed them he was of the canny kin, | |
| There was where old Nelson thundered, and where Rousseau waded in; | 50 |
| There McCook sent ’em to breakfast, and we all began to win,— | |
| There was where the grape-shot took me, just as we began to win. | |
| |
| “Now, a shroud of snow and silence over everything was spread; | |
| And but for this old blue mantle and the old hat on my head, | |
| I should not have even doubted, to this moment, I was dead,— | 55 |
| For my footsteps were as silent as the snow upon the dead! | |
| |
| “Death and silence!—Death and silence! all around me as I sped! | |
| And behold, a mighty tower, as if builded to the dead, | |
| To the heaven of the heavens lifted up its mighty head, | |
| Till the Stars and Stripes of heaven all seemed waving from its head! | 60 |
| |
| “Round and mighty-based it towered,—up into the infinite,— | |
| And I knew no mortal mason could have built a shaft so bright; | |
| For it shone like solid sunshine; and a winding-stair of light | |
| Wound around it and around it till it wound clear out of sight! | |
| |
| “And, behold, as I approached it, with a rapt and dazzled stare,— | 65 |
| Thinking that I saw old comrades just ascending the great stair, | |
| Suddenly the solemn challenge broke of—‘Halt, and who goes there!’ | |
| ‘I ’m a friend,’ I said, ‘if you are.’ ‘Then advance, sir, to the stair!’ | |
| |
| “I advanced! That sentry, Doctor, was Elijah Ballantyne!— | |
| First of all to fall on Monday, after we had formed the line!— | 70 |
| ‘Welcome, my old Sergeant, welcome! Welcome by that countersign!’ | |
| And he pointed to the scar there, under this old cloak of mine! | |
| |
| “As he grasped my hand, I shuddered, thinking only of the grave; | |
| But he smiled and pointed upward with a bright and bloodless glaive; | |
| ‘That ’s the way, sir, to head-quarters.’ ‘What head-quarters?’ ‘Of the brave.’ | 75 |
| ‘But the great tower?’ ‘That,’ he answered, ‘is the way, sir, of the brave!’ | |
| |
| “Then a sudden shame came o’er me, at his uniform of light; | |
| At my own so old and tattered, and at his so new and bright: | |
| ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘you have forgotten the new uniform to-night,— | |
| Hurry back, for you must be here at just twelve o’clock to-night!’ | 80 |
| |
| “And the next thing I remember, you were sitting there, and I— | |
| Doctor,—did you hear a footstep? Hark!—God bless you all! Good by! | |
| Doctor, please to give my musket and my knapsack, when I die, | |
| To my son—my son that ’s coming,—he won’t get here till I die! | |
| |
| “Tell him his old father blessed him as he never did before,— | 85 |
| And to carry that old musket”—Hark! a knock is at the door!— | |
| “Till the Union”—See! it opens! “Father! Father! speak once more!” | |
| “Bless you!” gasped the old, gray Sergeant, and he lay and said no more! | |
