StoryTitle("caps", "The Old Sergeant")?>
SubTitle("caps", "Battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing), Tenn.")?>
PoemStart()?>
PagePoem(67, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Come a little nearer, Doctor,—thank you,—let me take the cup;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Draw your chair up,—draw it closer,—just another little sup! ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Maybe you may think I'm better; but I'm pretty well used up,—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Doctor, you've done all you could do, but I'm just agoing up! ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain't much use to try\"—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Never say that,\" said the surgeon, as he smothered down a sigh; ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"It will never do, old comrade, for a soldier to say die!\"", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"What you say will make no difference, Doctor, when you come to die.", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Doctor, what has been the matter?\" \"You were very faint, they say;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "You must try to get to sleep now.\" \"Doctor, have I been away?\"", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Not that anybody knows of!\" \"Doctor,— Doctor, please to stay!", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There is something I must tell you, and you won't have long to stay!", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"I have got my marching orders, and I'm ready now to go; ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Doctor, did you say I fainted?—but it couldn't ha' been so.—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For as sure as I'm a Sergeant, and was wounded at Shiloh,", "")?>
PagePoem(68, "L0", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I've this very night been back there, on the old field of Shiloh! ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"This is all that I remember: The last time the Lighter came, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the lights had all been lowered, and the noises much the same,", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He had not been gone five minutes before something called my name:", "")?>
PoemLine("L0SQ", "", "'Orderly Sergeant—Robert Burton!'—just that way it called my name.", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so slow, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Knew it couldn't be the Lighter,—he could not have spoken so,—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And I tried to answer, 'here, sir!' but I couldn't make it go; ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For I couldn't move a muscle, and I couldn't make it go;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Then I thought: It's all a nightmare, all a humbug and a bore; ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Just another foolish grape-vine,—and it won't come any more;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But it came, sir, notwithstanding, just the same way as before ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "'Orderly Sergeant—Robert Burton!'—even plainer than before.", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"That is all that I remember, till a sudden burst of light,", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And I stood beside the river, where we stood that Sunday night,", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Waiting to be ferried over to the dark bluffs opposite, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "When the river was perdition and all hell was opposite! ", "")?>
PagePoem(69, "L0", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"And the same old palpitation came again in all its power, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And I heard a bugle sounding as from some celestial tower; ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the same mysterious voice said: 'It is the eleventh hour!", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Orderly Sergeant—Robert Burton—it is the eleventh hour!' ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Doctor Austin! what day is this?\" \"It is Wednesday night, you know.\"", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Yes,—to-morrow will be New Year's, and a right good time below!", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"What time is it, Doctor Austin?\" \"Nearly twelve.\" \"Then don't you go!", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Can it be that all this happened—all this—not an hour ago! ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"There was where the gunboats opened on the dark, rebellious host;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And where Webster semicircled his last guns upon the coast; ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There were still the two log-houses, just the same, or else their ghost,—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the same old transport came and took me over,—or its ghost!", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"And the old field lay before me all deserted far and wide; ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There was where they fell on Prentiss,—there McClernand met the tide;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There was where stern Sherman rallied, and where Hurlbut's heroes died,—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Lower down, where Wallace charged them, and kept charging till he died.", "")?>
PagePoem(70, "L0", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"There was where Lew Wallace showed them he was of the canny kin,", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There was where old Nelson thundered, and where Rosseau waded in;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There McCook sent 'em to breakfast, and we all began to win,—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There was where the grape-shot took me, just as we began to win.", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Now, a shroud of snow and silence over everything was spread; ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And but for this old blue mantle, and the old hat on my head, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I should not have even doubted, to this moment I was dead,—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For my footsteps were as silent as the snow upon the dead?", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Death and silence!—Death and silence all round me as I sped!", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And behold, a mighty tower, as if builded to the dead. ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To the heaven of the heavens lifted up its mighty head, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till the Stars and Stripes of heaven all seemed waving from its head!", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Round and mighty-based it towered,— up into the infinite,—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And I knew no mortal mason could have built a shaft so bright, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For it shone like solid sunshine; and a winding-stair of light ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Wound around it and around it till it wound clear out of sight!", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"And, behold, as I approached it, with a wrapt and dazzled stare, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thinking that I saw old comrades just ascending the great stair,", "")?>
PagePoem(71, "L0", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Suddenly the solemn challenge broke of—'Halt, and who goes there!'", "")?>
PoemLine("L0SQ", "", "'I'm a friend,' I said 'if you are.' 'Then advance, sir, to the stair!'", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"I advanced! That sentry, Doctor, was Elijah Ballantyne!—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "First of all to fall on Monday, after we had formed the line?—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0SQ", "", "'Welcome, my old Sergeant, welcome! Welcome by that countersign!'", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And he pointed to the scar there, under this old cloak of mine! ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"As he grasped my hand, I shuddered, thinking only of the grave;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But he smiled and pointed upward with a bright and bloodless glaive;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0SQ", "", "'That's the way, sir, to head-quarters.' 'What head-quarters?' 'Of the brave.'", "")?>
PoemLine("L0SQ", "", "'But the great tower?' 'That,' he answered, 'is the way, sir, of the brave!'", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Then a sudden shame came o'er me, at his uniform of light;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "At my own so old and tattered, and at his so new and bright:", "")?>
PoemLine("L0SQ", "", "'Ah!' said he, 'you have forgotten the new uniform to-night,— ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Hurry back, for you must be here just at twelve o'clock to-night!'", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"And the next thing I remember, you were sitting there, and I— ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Doctor, did you hear a footstep? Hark!—God bless you all! Good-by!", "")?>
PagePoem(72, "L0", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Doctor, please to give my musket and my knapsack, when I die, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To my son—my son that's coming,—he won't get here till I die!", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Tell him his old father blessed him as he never did before,—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And to carry that old musket\"—Hark! a knock is at the door!—", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Till the Union\"—See it opens! \"Father! Father! speak once more?\"", "")?>
PoemLine("L0DQ", "", "\"Bless you!\" gasped the old, gray Sergeant, and he lay and said no more!", "")?>
PoemAttribution("85", SmallCapsText("—Forceythe Wilson. "))?>
PoemEnd()?>