"Such a sleep they sleep,
The men I loved!"
Tennyson.

Oh, silence, silence! now, when night is near,
And I am left alone,
Thou art so strange, so sad reposing here--
And all so changed hath grown,
Where all was once exuberant with life
Through day and night, in deep and deadly strife.

If I must weep, oh, tell me, is there not
Some plaintive story breathed into mine ear
By spirit-whispers from thy voiceless sphere,
Haunting this awful spot?
To my sad soul, more mutely eloquent
Than words of fame on sculptured monument
Outspeaks yon crumbling parapet, where lies
The broken gun, the idly rusting ball,
Mute tokens of an ill-starred enterprise!
Rude altars reared for costly sacrifice!
Vast work of hero-hands left in thy fall!

Where are they now, that fearless brotherhood,
Who marshalled here,
That fearful year,
In pain and peril, yet undaunted stood,--
Though Death rode fiercest on the battle-storm
And earth lay strewn with many a glorious form?
Where are they now, who, when the strife was done,
With kindly greeting 'round the camp-fire met,--
And made an hour of mirth, from triumphs won,
Repay the day's stern toil, when the slow sun had set?

Where are they?--
Let the nameless grave declare,--
In strange unwonted hillocks--frequent seen!
Alas I who knows how much lies buried there!--
What worlds, of love, and all that might have been!
The rest are scattered now, we know not where;
And Life to each a new employment brings;
But still they seem to gather round me here,
To whom these places were familiar things!
Wide sundered now, by mountain and by stream,
Once brothers--still a brotherhood they seem;--
More firm united, since a common woe
Hath brought to common hopes their overthrow!

Brave souls and true;--in toil and danger tried,--
I see them still as in those glorious years,
When strong, and battling bravely side by side,
All crowned their deeds with praise,--and some with tears
'Tis done! the sword is sheathed; the banner furled,
No sound where late the crashing missile whirled--
The dead alone possess the battle-plain;
The living turn them to life's cares again.

Oh, Silence! blessed dreams upon thee wait;
here Thought and Feeling ope their precious store,
And Memory, gathering from the spoils of Fate
Love's scattered treasures, brings them back once more!
So let me often dream,
As up the brightening stream
Of olden Time, thought gently leads me on,
Seeking those better days, lost, lost, alas! and gone!

All Is Gone.