Cadet Grey

Canto I I     Act first, scene first. A study. Of a kind     Half cell, half salon, opulent yet grave;     Rare books, low-shelved, yet far above the mind     Of common man to compass or to crave;     Some slight relief of pamphlets that inclined     The soul at first to trifling, till, dismayed     By text and title, it drew back resigned,     Nor cared with levity to vex a shade     That to itself such perfect concord made. II     Some thoughts like these perplexed the patriot brain     Of Jones, Lawgiver to the Commonwealth,     As on the threshold of this chaste domain     He paused expectant, and looked up in stealth     To darkened canvases that frowned amain,     With stern-eyed Puritans, who first began     To spread their roots in Georgius Primus reign,     Nor dropped till now, obedient to some plan,     Their century fruit,    the perfect Boston man. III     Somewhere within that Russia-scented gloom     A voice catarrhal thrilled the Members ear:     Brief is our business, Jones. Look round this room!     Regard yon portraits! Read their meaning clear!     These much proclaim my station. I presume     You are our Congressman, before whose wit     And sober judgment shall the youth appear     Who for West Point is deemed most just and fit     To serve his country and to honor it. IV     Such is my son! Elsewhere perhaps twere wise     Trial competitive should guide your choice.     There are some people I can well surmise     Themselves must show their merits. Historys voice     Spares me that trouble: all desert that lies     In yonder ancestor of Queen Annes day,     Or yon grave Governor, is all my boys,     Reverts to him; entailed, as one might say;     In brief, result in Winthrop Adams Grey! V     He turned and laid his well-bred hand, and smiled,     On the cropped head of one who stood beside.     Ah me! in sooth it was no ruddy child     Nor brawny youth that thrilled the fathers pride;     Twas but a Mind that somehow had beguiled     From soulless Matter processes that served     For speech and motion and digestion mild,     Content if all one moral purpose nerved,     Nor recked thereby its spine were somewhat curved. VI     He was scarce eighteen. Yet ere he was eight     He had despoiled the classics; much he knew     Of Sanskrit; not that he placed undue weight     On this, but that it helped him with Hebrew,     His favorite tongue. He learned, alas! too late,     One cant begin too early,    would regret     That boyish whim to ascertain the state     Of Venus atmosphere made him forget     That philologic goal on which his soul was set. VII     He too had traveled; at the age of ten     Found Paris empty, dull except for art     And accent. Mabille with its glories then     Less than Egyptian Almees touched a heart     Nothing if not pure classic. If some men     Thought him a prig, it vexed not his conceit,     But moved his pity, and ofttimes his pen,     The better to instruct them, through some sheet     Published in Boston, and signed Beacon Street. VIII     From premises so plain the blind could see     But one deduction, and it came next day.     In times like these, the very name of G.     Speaks volumes, wrote the Honorable J.     Inclosed please find appointment. Presently     Came a reception to which Harvard lent     Fourteen professors, and, to give esprit,     The Liberal Club some eighteen ladies sent,     Five that spoke Greek, and thirteen sentiment. IX     Four poets came who loved each others song,     And two philosophers, who thought that they     Were in most things impractical and wrong;     And two reformers, each in his own way     Peculiar,    one who had waxed strong     On herbs and water, and such simple fare;     Two foreign lions, Ram See and Chy Long,     And several artists claimed attention there,     Based on the fact they had been snubbed elsewhere. X     With this indorsement nothing now remained     But counsel, Godspeed, and some calm adieux;     No foolish tear the fathers eyelash stained,     And Winthrops cheek as guiltless shone of dew.     A slight publicity, such as obtained     In classic Rome, these few last hours attended.     The day arrived, the train and depot gained,     The mayors own presence this last act commended     The train moved off and here the first act ended.     CANTO II I     Where West Point crouches, and with lifted shield     Turns the whole river eastward through the pass;     Whose jutting crags, half silver, stand revealed     Like bossy bucklers of Leonidas;     Where buttressed low against the storms that wield     Their summer lightnings where her eaglets swarm,     By Freedoms cradle Natures self has steeled     Her heart, like Winkelried, and to that storm     Of leveled lances bares her bosom warm. II     But not to-night. The air and woods are still,     The faintest rustle in the trees below,     The lowest tremor from the mountain rill,     Come to the ear as but the trailing flow     Of spirit robes that walk unseen the hill;     The moon low sailing oer the upland farm,     The moon low sailing where the waters fill     The lozenge lake, beside the banks of balm,     Gleams like a chevron on the rivers arm. III     All space breathes languor: from the hilltop high,     Where Putnams bastion crumbles in the past,     To swooning depths where drowsy cannon lie     And wide-mouthed mortars gape in slumbers vast;     Stroke upon stroke, the far oars glance and die     On the hushed bosom of the sleeping stream;     Bright for one moment drifts a white sail by,     Bright for one moment shows a bayonet gleam     Far on the level plain, then passes as a dream. IV     Soft down the line of darkened battlements,     Bright on each lattice of the barrack walls,     Where the low arching sallyport indents,     Seen through its gloom beyond, the moonbeam falls.     All is repose save where the camping tents     Mock the white gravestones farther on, where sound     No morning guns for reveille, nor whence     No drum-beat calls retreat, but still is ever found     Waiting and present on each sentrys round. V     Within the camp they lie, the young, the brave,     Half knight, half schoolboy, acolytes of fame,     Pledged to one altar, and perchance one grave;     Bred to fear nothing but reproach and blame,     Ascetic dandies oer whom vestals rave,     Clean-limbed young Spartans, disciplined young elves,     Taught to destroy, that they may live to save,     Students embattled, soldiers at their shelves,     Heroes whose conquests are at first themselves. VI     Within the camp they lie, in dreams are freed     From the grim discipline they learn to love;     In dreams no more the sentrys challenge heed,     In dreams afar beyond their pickets rove;     One treads once more the piny paths that lead     To his green mountain home, and pausing hears     The cattle call; one treads the tangled weed     Of slippery rocks beside Atlantic piers;     One smiles in sleep, one wakens wet with tears. VII     One scents the breath of jasmine flowers that twine     The pillared porches of his Southern home;     One hears the coo of pigeons in the pine     Of Western woods where he was wont to roam;     One sees the sunset fire the distant line     Where the long prairie sweeps its levels down;     One treads the snow-peaks; one by lamps that shine     Down the broad highways of the sea-girt town;     And two are missing,    Cadets Grey and Brown! VIII     Much as I grieve to chronicle the fact,     That selfsame truant known as Cadet Grey     Was the young hero of our moral tract,     Shorn of his twofold names on entrance-day.     Winthrop and Adams dropped in that one act     Of martial curtness, and the roll-call thinned     Of his ancestors, he with youthful tact     Indulgence claimed, since Winthrop no more sinned,     Nor sainted Adams winced when he, plain Grey, was skinned. IX     He had known trials since we saw him last,     By sheer good luck had just escaped rejection,     Not for his learning, but that it was cast     In a spare frame scarce fit for drill inspection;     But when he oped his lips a stream so vast     Of information flooded each professor,     They quite forgot his eyeglass,    something past     All precedent,    accepting the transgressor,     Weak eyes and all of which he was possessor. X     Een the first day he touched a blackboards space     So the tradition of his glory lingers     Two wise professors fainted, each with face     White as the chalk within his rapid fingers:     All day he ciphered, at such frantic pace,     His form was hid in chalk precipitation     Of every problem, till they said his case     Could meet from them no fair examination     Till Congress made a new appropriation. XI     Famous in molecules, he demonstrated     From the mess hash to many a listening classful;     Great as a botanist, he separated     Three kinds of Mentha in one juleps glassful;     High in astronomy, it has been stated     He was the first at West Point to discover     Mars missing satellites, and calculated     Their true positions, not the heavens over,     But neath the window of Miss Kitty Rover. XII     Indeed, I fear this novelty celestial     That very night was visible and clear;     At least two youths of aspect most terrestrial,     And clad in uniform, were loitering near     A villas casement, where a gentle vestal     Took their impatience somewhat patiently,     Knowing the youths were somewhat green and bestial     (A certain slang of the Academy,     I beg the reader wont refer to me). XIII     For when they ceased their ardent strain, Miss Kitty     Glowed not with anger nor a kindred flame,     But rather flushed with an odd sort of pity,     Half matrons kindness, and half coquettes shame;     Proud yet quite blameful, when she heard their ditty     She gave her soul poetical expression,     And being clever too, as she was pretty,     From her high casement warbled this confession,     Half provocation and one half repression:     Not Yet     Not yet, O friend, not yet! the patient stars     Lean from their lattices, content to wait.     All is illusion till the morning bars     Slip from the levels of the Eastern gate.     Night is too young, O friend! day is too near;     Wait for the day that maketh all things clear.     Not yet, O friend, not yet!     Not yet, O love, not yet! all is not true,     All is not ever as it seemeth now.     Soon shall the river take another blue,     Soon dies yon light upon the mountain brow.     What lieth dark, O love, bright day will fill;     Wait for thy morning, be it good or ill.     Not yet, O love, not yet! XIV     The strain was finished; softly as the night     Her voice died from the window, yet een then     Fluttered and fell likewise a kerchief white;     But that no doubt was accident, for when     She sought her couch she deemed her conduct quite     Beyond the reach of scandalous commenter,     Washing her hands of either gallant wight,     Knowing the moralist might compliment her,     Thus voicing Siren with the words of Mentor. XV     She little knew the youths below, who straight     Dived for her kerchief, and quite overlooked     The pregnant moral she would inculcate;     Nor dreamed the less how little Winthrop brooked     Her right to doubt his souls maturer state.     Brown    who was Western, amiable, and new     Might take the moral and accept his fate;     The which he did, but, being stronger too,     Took the white kerchief, also, as his due. XVI     They did not quarrel, which no doubt seemed queer     To those who knew not how their friendship blended;     Each was opposed, and each the others peer,     Yet each the other in some things transcended.     Where Brown lacked culture, brains,    and oft, I fear,     Cash in his pocket,    Grey of course supplied him;     Where Grey lacked frankness, force, and faith sincere,     Brown of his manhood suffered none to chide him,     But in his faults stood manfully beside him. XVII     In academic walks and studies grave,     In the camp drill and martial occupation,     They helped each other: but just here I crave     Space for the readers full imagination,     The fact is patent, Grey became a slave!     A tool, a fag, a pleb! To state it plainer,     All that blue blood and ancestry eer gave     Cleaned guns, brought water!    was, in fact, retainer     To Jones, whose uncle was a paper-stainer! XVIII     How they bore this at home I cannot say:     I only know so runs the gossips tale.     It chanced one day that the paternal Grey     Came to West Point that he himself might hail     The future hero in some proper way     Consistent with his lineage. With him came     A judge, a poet, and a brave array     Of aunts and uncles, bearing each a name,     Eyeglass and respirator with the same. XIX     Observe! quoth Grey the elder to his friends,     Not in these giddy youths at baseball playing     Youll notice Winthrop Adams! Greater ends     Than these absorb his leisure. No doubt straying     With Caesars Commentaries, he attends     Some Roman council. Let us ask, however,     Yon grimy urchin, who my soul offends     By wheeling offal, if he will endeavor     To find     What! heaven! Winthrop! Oh! no! never! XX     Alas! too true! The last of all the Greys     Was doing police detail,    it had come     To this; in vain the rare historic bays     That crowned the pictured Puritans at home!     And yet twas certain that in grosser ways     Of health and physique he was quite improving.     Straighter he stood, and had achieved some praise     In other exercise, much more behooving     A soldiers taste than merely dirt removing. XXI     But to resume: we left the youthful pair,     Some stanzas back, before a ladys bower;     Tis to be hoped they were no longer there,     For stars were pointing to the morning hour.     Their escapade discovered, ill twould fare     With our two heroes, derelict of orders;     But, like the ghost, they scent the morning air,     And back again they steal across the borders,     Unseen, unheeded, by their martial warders. XXII     They got to bed with speed: young Grey to dream     Of some vague future with a generals star,     And Mistress Kitty basking in its gleam;     While Brown, content to worship her afar,     Dreamed himself dying by some lonely stream,     Having snatched Kitty from eighteen Nez Perces,     Till a far bugle, with the morning beam,     In his dull ear its fateful song rehearses,     Which Winthrop Adams after put to verses. XXIII     So passed three years of their novitiate,     The first real boyhood Grey had ever known.     His youth ran clear,    not choked like his Cochituate,     In civic pipes, but free and pure alone;     Yet knew repression, could himself habituate     To having mind and body well rubbed down,     Could read himself in others, and could situate     Themselves in him,    except, I grieve to own,     He couldnt see what Kitty saw in Brown! XXIV     At last came graduation; Brown received     In the One Hundredth Cavalry commission;     Then frolic, flirting, parting,    when none grieved     Save Brown, who loved our young Academician.     And Grey, who felt his friend was still deceived     By Mistress Kitty, who with other beauties     Graced the occasion, and it was believed     Had promised Brown that when he could recruit his     Promised command, shed share with him those duties. XXV     Howeer this was I know not; all I know,     The night was Junes, the moon rode high and clear;     Twas such a night as this, three years ago,     Miss Kitty sang the song that two might hear.     There is a walk where trees oerarching grow,     Too wide for one, not wide enough for three     (A fact precluding any plural beau),     Which quite explained Miss Kittys company,     But not why Grey that favored one should be. XXVI     There is a spring, whose limpid waters hide     Somewhere within the shadows of that path     Called Kosciuskos. There two figures bide,     Grey and Miss Kitty. Surely Nature hath     No fairer mirror for a might-be bride     Than this same pool that caught our gentle belle     To its dark heart one moment. At her side     Grey bent. A something trembled oer the well,     Bright, spherical    a tear? Ah no! a button fell! XXVII     Material minds might think that gravitation,     Quoth Grey, drew yon metallic spheroid down.     The soul poetic views the situation     Fraught with more meaning. When thy girlish crown     Was mirrored there, there was disintegration     Of me, and all my spirit moved to you,     Taking the form of slow precipitation!     But here came Taps, a start, a smile, adieu!     A blush, a sigh, and end of Canto II.     Bugle Song     Fades the light,     And afar     Goeth day, cometh night;     And a star     Leadeth all,     Speedeth all     To their rest!     Love, good-night!     Must thou go     When the day     And the light     Need thee so,     Needeth all,     Heedeth all,     That is best?     Canto III I     Where the sun sinks through leagues of arid sky,     Where the sun dies oer leagues of arid plain,     Where the dead bones of wasted rivers lie,     Trailed from their channels in yon mountain chain;     Where day by day naught takes the wearied eye     But the low-rimming mountains, sharply based     On the dead levels, moving far or nigh,     As the sick vision wanders oer the waste,     But ever day by day against the sunset traced: II     There moving through a poisonous cloud that stings     With dust of alkali the trampling band     Of Indian ponies, ride on dusky wings     The red marauders of the Western land;     Heavy with spoil, they seek the trail that brings     Their flaunting lances to that sheltered bank     Where lie their lodges; and the river sings     Forgetful of the plain beyond, that drank     Its life blood, where the wasted caravan sank. III     They brought with them the thiefs ignoble spoil,     The beggars dole, the greed of chiffonnier,     The scum of camps, the implements of toil     Snatched from dead hands, to rust as useless here;     All they could rake or glean from hut or soil     Piled their lean ponies, with the jackdaws greed     For vacant glitter. It were scarce a foil     To all this tinsel that one feathered reed     Bore on its barb two scalps that freshly bleed! IV     They brought with them, alas! a wounded foe,     Bound hand and foot, yet nursed with cruel care,     Lest that in death he might escape one throe     They had decreed his living flesh should bear:     A youthful officer, by one foul blow     Of treachery surprised, yet fighting still     Amid his ambushed train, calm as the snow     Above him; hopeless, yet content to spill     His blood with theirs, and fighting but to kill. V     He had fought nobly, and in that brief spell     Had won the awe of those rude border men     Who gathered round him, and beside him fell     In loyal faith and silence, save that when     By smoke embarrassed, and near sight as well,     He paused to wipe his eyeglass, and decide     Its nearer focus, there arose a yell     Of approbation, and Bob Barker cried,     Wade in, Dundreary! tossed his cap and    died. VI     Their sole survivor now! his captors bear     Him all unconscious, and beside the stream     Leave him to rest; meantime the squaws prepare     The stake for sacrifice: nor wakes a gleam     Of pity in those Furies eyes that glare     Expectant of the torture; yet alway     His steadfast spirit shines and mocks them there     With peace they know not, till at close of day     On his dull ear there thrills a whispered Grey! VII     He starts! Was it a trick? Had angels kind     Touched with compassion some weak womans breast?     Such things hed read of! Faintly to his mind     Came Pocahontas pleading for her guest.     But then, this voice, though soft, was still inclined     To baritone! A squaw in ragged gown     Stood near him, frowning hatred. Was he blind?     Whose eye was this beneath that beetling frown?     The frown was painted, but that wink meant    Brown! VIII     Hush! for your life and mine! the thongs are cut,     He whispers; in yon thicket stands my horse.     One dash!    I follow close, as if to glut     My own revenge, yet bar the others course.     Now! And tis done. Grey speeds, Brown follows; but     Ere yet they reach the shade, Grey, fainting, reels,     Yet not before Browns circling arms close shut     His in, uplifting him! Anon he feels     A horse beneath him bound, and hears the rattling heels. IX     Then rose a yell of baffled hate, and sprang     Headlong the savages in swift pursuit;     Though speed the fugitives, they hope to hang     Hot on their heels, like wolves, with tireless foot.     Long is the chase; Brown hears with inward pang     The short, hard panting of his gallant steed     Beneath its double burden; vainly rang     Both voice and spur. The heaving flanks may bleed,     Yet comes the sequel that they still must heed! X     Brown saw it    reined his steed; dismounting, stood     Calm and inflexible. Old chap! you see     There is but one escape. You know it? Good!     There is one man to take it. You are he.     The horse wont carry double. If he could,     Twould but protract this bother. I shall stay:     Ive business with these devils, they with me;     I will occupy them till you get away.     Hush! quick time, forward. There! God bless you, Grey! XI     But as he finished, Grey slipped to his feet,     Calm as his ancestors in voice and eye:     You do forget yourself when you compete     With him whose right it is to stay and die:     Thats not your duty. Please regain your seat;     And take my orders    since I rank you here!     Mount and rejoin your men, and my defeat     Report at quarters. Take this letter; neer     Give it to aught but her, nor let aught interfere. XII     And, shamed and blushing, Brown the letter took     Obediently and placed it in his pocket;     Then, drawing forth another, said, I look     For death as you do, wherefore take this locket     And letter. Here his comrades hand he shook     In silence. Should we both together fall,     Some other man    but here all speech forsook     His lips, as ringing cheerily oer all     He heard afar his own dear bugle-call! XIII     Twas his command and succor, but een then     Grey fainted, with poor Brown, who had forgot     He likewise had been wounded, and both men     Were picked up quite unconscious of their lot.     Long lay they in extremity, and when     They both grew stronger, and once more exchanged     Old vows and memories, one common den     In hospital was theirs, and free they ranged,     Awaiting orders, but no more estranged. XIV     And yet twas strange    nor can I end my tale     Without this moral, to be fair and just:     They never sought to know why each did fail     The prompt fulfillment of the others trust.     It was suggested they could not avail     Themselves of either letter, since they were     Duly dispatched to their address by mail     By Captain X., who knew Miss Rover fair     Now meant stout Mistress Bloggs of Blank Blank Square.