Poetry

GRANT AT SHILOH.

Joaquin Miller


  • The blue and the gray! Their work was well done!
  • They lay as to listen to the water's flow.
  • Some lay with their faces upturned to the sun,
  • As seeking to know what the gods might know.
  • Their work was well done, each soldier was true.
  • But what is the question that comes to you?

  • For all that men do, for all that men dare,
  • That river still runs with its stateliest flow.
  • The sun and the moon I scarcely think care
  • A fig for the fallen, of friend or of foe.
  • But the moss-mantled cypress, the old soldiers say,
  • Still mantles in smoke of that battle day!

  • These men in the dust! These pitiful dead!
  • The gray and the blue, the blue and the gray,
  • The headless trunk and the trunkless head;
  • The image of God in the gory clay!
  • And who was the bravest? Say, can you tell
  • If Death throws dice with a loaded shell?