Part 6 (1/2)

By a computation that still holds good, Made by the Holy Brotherhood, The ”San Gregorio” will cross that line In nineteen hundred and thirty-nine: Just three hundred years to a day From the time she lost the ninth of May.

And the folk in Acapulco town, Over the waters, looking down, Will see in the glow of the setting sun The sails of the missing galleon, And the royal standard of Philip _Rey_; The gleaming mast and glistening spar, As she nears the surf of the outer bar.

A _Te Deum_ sung on her crowded deck, An odor of spice along the sh.o.r.e, A crash, a cry from a shattered wreck,-- And the yearly galleon sails no more, In or out of the olden bay; For the blessed patron has found his day.

Such is the legend. Hear this truth: Over the trackless past, somewhere, Lie the lost days of our tropic youth, Only regained by faith and prayer, Only recalled by prayer and plaint: Each lost day has its patron saint!

A Second Review of the Grand Army.

I read last night of the Grand Review In Was.h.i.+ngton's chiefest avenue,-- Two Hundred Thousand men in blue, I think they said was the number,-- Till I seemed to hear their trampling feet, The bugle blast and the drum's quick beat, The clatter of hoofs in the stony street, The cheers of people who came to greet, And the thousand details that to repeat Would only my verse enc.u.mber,-- Till I fell in a reverie, sad and sweet, And then to a fitful slumber.

When, lo! in a vision I seemed to stand In the lonely Capitol. On each hand Far stretched the portico, dim and grand Its columns ranged like a martial band Of sheeted spectres, whom some command Had called to a last reviewing.

And the streets of the city were white and bare; No footfall echoed across the square; But out of the misty midnight air I heard in the distance a trumpet blare, And the wandering night-winds seemed to bear The sound of a far tattooing.

Then I held my breath with fear and dread; For into the square, with a brazen tread, There rode a figure whose stately head O'erlooked the review that morning, That never bowed from its firm-set seat When the living column pa.s.sed its feet, Yet now rode steadily up the street To the phantom bugle's warning:

Till it reached the Capitol square, and wheeled, And there in the moonlight stood revealed A well-known form that in State and field Had led our patriot sires; Whose face was turned to the sleeping camp, Afar through the river's fog and damp, That showed no flicker, nor waning lamp, Nor wasted bivouac fires.

And I saw a phantom army come, With never a sound of fife or drum, But keeping time to a throbbing hum Of wailing and lamentation: The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill, Of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, The men whose wasted figures fill The patriot graves of the nation.

And there came the nameless dead,--the men Who perished in fever swamp and fen, The slowly-starved of the prison-pen; And, marching beside the others, Came the dusky martyrs of Pillow's fight, With limbs enfranchised and bearing bright; I thought--perhaps 'twas the pale moonlight-- They looked as white as their brothers!

And so all night marched the Nation's dead With never a banner above them spread, Nor a badge, nor a motto brandished; No mark--save the bare uncovered head Of the silent bronze Reviewer; With never an arch save the vaulted sky; With never a flower save those that lie On the distant graves--for love could buy No gift that was purer or truer.

So all night long swept the strange array, So all night long till the morning gray I watched for one who had pa.s.sed away, With a reverent awe and wonder,-- Till a blue cap waved in the lengthening line, And I knew that one who was kin of mine Had come; and I spake--and lo! that sign Awakened me from my slumber.

Part II.

Before the Curtain.

Behind the footlights hangs the rusty baize, A trifle shabby in the upturned blaze Of flaring gas, and curious eyes that gaze.

The stage, methinks, perhaps is none too wide, And hardly fit for royal Richard's stride, Or Falstaff's bulk, or Denmark's youthful pride.

Ah, well! no pa.s.sion walks its humble boards; O'er it no king nor valiant Hector lords: The simplest skill is all its s.p.a.ce affords.

The song and jest, the dance and trifling play, The local hit at follies of the day, The trick to pa.s.s an idle hour away,--

For these, no trumpets that announce the Moor, No blast that makes the hero's welcome sure,-- A single fiddle in the overture!