THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.
Reading edition
By THEODORE O'HARA.
Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867) has been said to have produced the one perfect and universal martial elegy that the world has known. "The Bivouac of the Dead" has been translated into almost every European language, and since it was written, more than half a century ago, it has been almost as popular in England as in the United States.
On the field on which was fought one of the most stubbornly contested battles of the Crimean War is a large monument which bears the last four lines of the first verse of O'Hara's poem, and over the gateway of the National Cemetery at Arlington the whole first stanza is inscribed, while there, as at Antietam and other national cemeteries, the entire poem is produced, stanza by stanza, on slabs along the driveways.
O'Hara was a native of Kentucky, and served in the army during the war with Mexico. He wrote "The Bivouac of the Dead" on the occasion of the removal of the bodies of Kentucky soldiers from the field of the battle of Buena Vista to their native State.
At the outbreak of the Civil War O'Hara entered the Confederate army as a colonel. He died in Alabama in 1867, and his body was removed to Kentucky and laid beside those of the soldiers he had commemorated.
The muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo! No more on life's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On fame's eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread, And glory guards, with solemn round, The bivouac of the dead. No rumor of the foe's advance Now swells upon the wind; No troubled thought at midnight haunts Of loved ones left behind; No vision of the morrow's strife The warrior's dream alarms; No braying horn nor screaming fife At dawn shall call to arms. Their shivered swords are red with rust, Their plumed heads are bowed, Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, Is now their martial shroud, And plenteous funeral tears have washed The red stains from each brow, And the proud forms, by battle gashed, Are free from anguish now. The neighing troop, the flashing blade, The bugle's stirring blast, The charge, the dreadful cannonade, The din and shout are passed; Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal Shall thrill with fierce delight Those breasts that never more may feel The rapture of the fight. Like the fierce northern hurricane That sweeps this great plateau, Flushed with the triumph yet to gain, Came down the serried foe, Who heard the thunder of the fray Break o'er the field beneath, Knew well the watchword of that day Was "Victory or death!" Full many a norther's breath has swept O'er Angostura's plain, And long the pitying sky has wept Above the moldering slain. The raven's scream or eagle's flight Or shepherd's pensive lay Alone now wakes each sullen height That frowned o'er that dread fray. Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, Ye must not slumber there, Where stranger steps and tongues resound Along the heedless air; Your own proud land's heroic soil Shall be your fitter grave; She claims from war its richest spoil, The ashes of her brave. So 'neath their parent turf they rest, Far from the gory field, Borne to a Spartan mother's breast On many a bloody shield; The sunshine of their native sky Smiles sadly on them here, And kindred eyes and hearts watch by The hero's sepulcher. Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! Dear as the blood ye gave, No impious footsteps here shall tread The herbage of your grave. Nor shall your glory be forgot While fame her record keeps Or honor points the hallowed spot Where valor proudly sleeps. Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone In deathless songs shall tell, When many a vanished age hath flown, The story how ye fell; Nor wreck nor change nor winter's flight Nor Time's remorseless doom Can dim one ray of holy light That gilds your glorious tomb.