Camps of Green
NOT alone those camps of white, O soldiers,
When, as order’d forward, after a long march,
Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessen’d, we halted for the night;
Some of us so fatigued, carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in our tracks;
Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up began to sparkle;
Outposts of pickets posted, surrounding, alert through the dark,
And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety;
Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums,
We rose up refresh’d, the night and sleep pass’d over, and resumed our journey,
Or proceeded to battle.
Lo! the camps of the tents of green,
Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling,
With a mystic army, (is it too order’d forward? is it too only halting awhile,
Till night and sleep pass over?)
Now in those camps of green-in their tents dotting the world;
In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them-in the old and young,
Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moonlight, content and silent there at
last,
Behold the mighty bivouac-field, and waiting-camp of all,
Of corps and generals all, and the President over the corps and generals all,
And of each of us, O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we fought,
(There without hatred we shall all meet.)
For presently, O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the bivouac-camps of green;
But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the countersign,
Nor drummer to beat the morning drum.
Related poetry:
- Hush'd be the Camps To-day 1 HUSH’D be the camps to-day; And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons; And each with musing soul retire, to celebrate, Our dear commander’s death. No more for him life’s stormy conflicts; Nor victory, nor defeat-no more time’s dark events, Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky. 2 But sing, poet, in our name; […]...
- Santa Claus “HALT! Who goes there?” The sentry’s call Rose on the midnight air Above the noises of the camp, The roll of wheels, the horses’ tramp. The challenge echoed over all – “Halt! Who goes there?” A quaint old figure clothed in white, He bore a staff of pine, An ivy-wreath was on his head. “Advance, […]...
- By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame BY the bivouac’s fitful flame, A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;-but first I note, The tents of the sleeping army, the fields’ and woods’ dim outline, The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire-the silence; Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving; The shrubs and trees, (as I […]...
- Green Thumb Shake out my pockets! Harken to the call Of that calm voice that makes no sound at all! Take of me all you can; my average weight May make amends for this, my low estate. But do not shake, Green Thumb, as once you did My heart and liver, or my prostate bid Good Morning […]...
- Sleep There was a man who didn’t know how to sleep; nodding Off every night into a drab, unprofessional sleep. Sleep that He’d grown so tired of sleeping. He tried reading The Manual of Sleep, but it just put him To sleep. That same old sleep that he had grown so tired of Sleeping. . . […]...
- The Echoing Green The Sun does arise, And make happy the skies. The merry bells ring, To welcome the Spring. The sky-lark and thrush, The birds of the bush, Sing louder around, To the bells cheerful sound. While our sports shall be seen On the Echoing Green. Old John, with white hair Does laugh away care, Sitting under […]...
- Harry Wilmans I was just turned twenty-one, And Henry Phipps, the Sunday-school superintendent, Made a speech in Bindle’s Opera House. “The honor of the flag must be upheld,” he said, “Whether it be assailed by a barbarous tribe of Tagalogs Or the greatest power in Europe.” And we cheered and cheered the speech and the flag he […]...
- Green The dawn was apple-green, The sky was green wine held up in the sun, The moon was a golden petal between. She opened her eyes, and green They shone, clear like flowers undone, For the first time, now for the first time seen....
- 32. Song-Green Grow the Rashes Chor.-Green grow the rashes, O; Green grow the rashes, O; The sweetest hours that e’er I spend, Are spent amang the lasses, O. THERE’S nought but care on ev’ry han’, In ev’ry hour that passes, O: What signifies the life o’ man, An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O. Green grow, &c. The war’ly race […]...
- The Color of the Grave is Green The Color of the Grave is Green The Outer Grave I mean You would not know it from the Field Except it own a Stone To help the fond to find it Too infinite asleep To stop and tell them where it is But just a Daisy deep The Color of the Grave is white […]...
- Green Fields By this part of the century few are left who believe in the animals for they are not there in the carved parts Of them served on plates and the pleas from the slatted trucks are sounds of shadows that possess no future There is still game for the pleasure of killing and there are […]...
- Who Goes Amid the Green Wood Who goes amid the green wood With springtide all adorning her? Who goes amid the merry green wood To make it merrier? Who passes in the sunlight By ways that know the light footfall? Who passes in the sweet sunlight With mien so virginal? The ways of all the woodland Gleam with a soft and […]...
- Concert Party (EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP) They are gathering round…. Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound – The jangle and throb of a piano… tum-ti-tum… Drawn by a lamp, they come Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand. O sing us the […]...
- Green Grow The Rashes Green grow the rashes, O! Green grow the rashes, O! The sweetest hours that e’er I spend, Are spent amang the lasses, O! There’s nought but care on every han’ In every hour that passes, O; What signifies the life o’ man, An ’twere na for the lasses, O? The warl’ly race may riches chase, […]...
- When I peruse the Conquer'd Fame WHEN I peruse the conquer’d fame of heroes, and the victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals, Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house; But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them, How through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long […]...
- The Village Green On the cheerful village green, Skirted round with houses small, All the boys and girls are seen, Playing there with hoop and ball. Now they frolic hand in hand, Making many a merry chain; Then they form a warlike band, Marching o’er the level plain. Now ascends the worsted ball, High it rises in the […]...
- Centenarian's Story, The GIVE me your hand, old Revolutionary; The hill-top is nigh-but a few steps, (make room, gentlemen;) Up the path you have follow’d me well, spite of your hundred and extra years; You can walk, old man, though your eyes are almost done; Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me. Rest, […]...
- Green Mountain You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain; I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care. As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown, I have a world apart that is not among men....
- Drum-Taps 1 FIRST, O songs, for a prelude, Lightly strike on the stretch’d tympanum, pride and joy in my city, How she led the rest to arms-how she gave the cue, How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang; (O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless! O strongest you in the hour […]...
- Being Young And Green Being Young and Green, I said in love’s despite: Never in the world will I to living wight Give over, air my mind To anyone, Hang out its ancient secrets in the strong wind To be shredded and faded- Oh, me, invaded And sacked by the wind and the sun!...
- In The Green And Gallant Spring IN the green and gallant Spring, Love and the lyre I thought to sing, And kisses sweet to give and take By the flowery hawthorn brake. Now is russet Autumn here, Death and the grave and winter drear, And I must ponder here aloof While the rain is on the roof....
- The Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees Is my destroyer. And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. The force that drives the water through the rocks Drives my red blood; that […]...
- Midsummer, Tobago Broad sun-stoned beaches. White heat. A green river. A bridge, Scorched yellow palms From the summer-sleeping house Drowsing through August. Days I have held, Days I have lost, Days that outgrow, like daughters, My harbouring arms....
- 538. Song-Now Spring has clad the grove in green NOW spring has clad the grove in green, And strew’d the lea wi’ flowers; The furrow’d, waving corn is seen Rejoice in fostering showers. While ilka thing in nature join Their sorrows to forego, O why thus all alone are mine The weary steps o’ woe! The trout in yonder wimpling burn That glides, a […]...
- Sleeping at last Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over, Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past, Cold and white, out of sight of friend and of lover, Sleeping at last. No more a tired heart downcast or overcast, No more pangs that wring or shifting fears that hover, Sleeping at last in a dreamless sleep […]...
- The Christ of the 'Never' With eyes that are narrowed to pierce To the awful horizons of land, Through the blaze of hot days, and the fierce White heat-waves that flow on the sand; Through the Never Land westward and nor’ward, Bronzed, bearded, and gaunt on the track, Low-voiced and hard-knuckled, rides forward The Christ of the Outer Out-back. For […]...
- A Green Stream I have sailed the River of Yellow Flowers, Borne by the channel of a green stream, Rounding ten thousand turns through the mountains On a journey of less than thirty miles…. Rapids hum over heaped rocks; But where light grows dim in the thick pines, The surface of an inlet sways with nut-horns And weeds […]...
- Thinking Of A Friend At Night In this evil year, autumn comes early… I walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters, The wind on my hat…And you? And you, my friend? You are standing maybe and seeing the sickle moon Move in a small arc over the forests And bivouac fire, red in the black valley. You are […]...
- The Gardener LXXXIV: Over the Green Over the green and yellow rice-fields Sweep the shadows of the autumn Clouds followed by the swift-chasing Sun. The bees forget to sip their honey; Drunken with light they foolishly hover And hum. The ducks in the islands of the river Clamour in joy for mere nothing. Let none go back home, brothers, This morning, […]...
- A Green Crab's Shell Not, exactly, green: Closer to bronze Preserved in kind brine, Something retrieved From a Greco-Roman wreck, Patinated and oddly Muscular. We cannot Know what his fantastic Legs were like Though evidence Suggests eight Complexly folded Scuttling works Of armament, crowned By the foreclaws’ Gesture of menace And power. A gull’s Gobbled the center, Leaving this […]...
- The Green Bowl This little bowl is like a mossy pool In a Spring wood, where dogtooth violets grow Nodding in chequered sunshine of the trees; A quiet place, still, with the sound of birds, Where, though unseen, is heard the endless song And murmur of the never resting sea. ‘T was winter, Roger, when you made this […]...
- These Green-Going-to-Yellow This year, I’m raising the emotional ante, Putting my face In the leaves to be stepped on, Seeing myself among them, that is; That is, likening Leaf-vein to artery, leaf to flesh, The passage of a leaf in autumn To the passage of autumn, Branch-tip and winter spaces To possibilities, and possibility To God. Even […]...
- Variation On The Word Sleep I would like to watch you sleeping, Which may not happen. I would like to watch you, Sleeping. I would like to sleep With you, to enter Your sleep as its smooth dark wave Slides over my head And walk with you through that lucent Wavering forest of bluegreen leaves With its watery sun & […]...
- Small Is The Trust When Love Is Green SMALL is the trust when love is green In sap of early years; A little thing steps in between And kisses turn to tears. Awhile – and see how love be grown In loveliness and power! Awhile, it loves the sweets alone, But next it loves the sour. A little love is none at all […]...
- Sonnet IX: Ye, Who in Alleys Green Ye, who in alleys green and leafy bow’rs, Sport, the rude children of fantastic birth; Where frolic nymphs, and shaggy tribes of mirth, In clam’rous revels waste the midnight hours; Who, link’d in flaunting bands of mountain flow’rs, Weave your wild mazes o’er the dewy earth, Ere the fierce Lord of Lustre rushes forth, And […]...
- Solidarity Song Peoples of the world, together Join to serve the common cause! So it feeds us all for ever See to it that it’s now yours. Forward, without forgetting Where our strength can be seen now to be! When starving or when eating Forward, not forgetting Our solidarity! Black or white or brown or yellow Leave […]...
- Lines Written at Thorp Green That summer sun, whose genial glow Now cheers my drooping spirit so Must cold and distant be, And only light our northern clime With feeble ray, before the time I long so much to see. And this soft whispering breeze that now So gently cools my fevered brow, This too, alas, must turn To a […]...
- 489. Song-Behold, my love, how green the groves BEHOLD, my love, how green the groves, The primrose banks how fair; The balmy gales awake the flowers, And wave thy flowing hair. The lav’rock shuns the palace gay, And o’er the cottage sings: For Nature smiles as sweet, I ween, To Shepherds as to Kings. Let minstrels sweep the skilfu’ string, In lordly lighted […]...
- Song of the Bowmen of Shu Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots And saying: When shall we get back to our country? Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen, We have no comfort because of these Mongols. We grub the soft fern-shoots, When anyone says “Return,” the others are full of sorrow. Sorrowful minds, sorrow is […]...
- Sonnet XXIX: Like Some Weak Lords Like some weak lords, neighbor’d by mighty kings, To keep themselves and their chief cities free, Do easily yield, that all their coasts may be Ready to store their camps of needful things: So Stella’s heart finding what power Love brings, To keep itself in life and liberty, Doth willing grant, that in the frontiers […]...