_A GRAVE._
1.
As toilsome I wandered Virginia's woods,
To the music of rustling leaves kicked by my feet--for 'twas autumn--
I marked at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier;
Mortally wounded he, and buried on the retreat--easily all could I
understand;
The halt of a mid-day hour--when, Up! no time to lose! Yet this sign left
On a tablet scrawled and nailed on the tree by the grave,
_Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade_.
2.
Long, long I muse,--then on my way go wandering,
Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life.
Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt,--alone, or in the
crowded street,--
Comes before me the unknown soldier's grave, comes the inscription rude in
Virginia's woods,
_Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade_.
_THE DRESSER._
1.
An old man bending, I come among new faces,
Years, looking backward, resuming, in answer to children,
"Come tell us, old man," (as from young men and maidens that love me, Years
hence) "of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances,
Of unsurpassed heroes--(was one side so brave? the other was equally brave)
Now be witness again--paint the mightiest armies of earth;
Of those armies, so rapid, so wondrous, what saw you to tell us?
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
Of hard-fought engagements, or sieges tremendous, what deepest remains?"
2.
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