A Second Review of the Grand Army

I read last night of the grand review     In Washingtons 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 drums 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 encumber,     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     Oerlooked the review that morning,     That never bowed from its firm-set seat     When the living column passed its feet,     Yet now rode steadily up the street     To the phantom bugles 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 rivers 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 Pillows 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 nations 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 passed away;     With a reverent awe and wonder,     Till a blue cap waved in the lengthning 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.