June, 1865 <br /> <br />Armies he's seen--the herds of war, <br />But never such swarms of men <br />As now in the Nineveh of the North-- <br />How mad the Rebellion then! <br /> <br />And yet but dimly he divines <br />The depth of that deceit, <br />And superstitution of vast pride <br />Humbled to such defeat. <br /> <br />Seductive shone the Chiefs in arms-- <br />His steel the nearest magnet drew; <br />Wreathed with its kind, the Gulf-weed drives-- <br />'Tis Nature's wrong they rue. <br /> <br />His face is hidden in his beard, <br />But his heart peers out at eye-- <br />And such a heart! like a mountain-pool <br />Where no man passes by. <br /> <br />He thinks of Hill--a brave soul gone; <br />And Ashby dead in pale disdain; <br />And Stuart with the Rupert-plume, <br />Whose blue eye never shall laugh again. <br /> <br />He hears the drum; he sees our boys <br />From his wasted fields return; <br />Ladies feast them on strawberries, <br />And even to kiss them yearn. <br /> <br />He marks them bronzed, in soldier-trim, <br />The rifle proudly borne; <br />They bear it for an heirloom home, <br />And he--disarmed--jail-worn. <br /> <br />Home, home--his heart is full of it; <br />But home he never shall see, <br />Even should he stand upon the spot: <br />'Tis gone!--where his brothers be. <br /> <br />The cypress-moss from tree to tree <br />Hangs in his Southern land; <br />As weird, from thought to thought of his <br />Run memories hand in hand. <br /> <br />And so he lingers--lingers on <br />In the City of the Foe-- <br />His cousins and his countrymen <br />Who see him listless go.<br /><br />Herman Melville<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-released-rebel-prisoner/
