  Forceythe Willson, "the William Blake of Western letters," was born at Little Genesee, New York, April 10, 1837, the elder brother of the latest Republican governor of Kentucky, Augustus E. Willson. When Forceythe was nine years old, his family packed their household goods upon an "ark," or Kentucky flatboat, at Pittsburgh, and drifted down the Ohio river, landing at Maysville, Kentucky, where they resided for a year, and in which town the future governor of Kentucky was born. In 1847 the Willsons removed to Covington, Kentucky, and there Forceythe's education was begun. The family lived at Covington for six years, at the end of which time Forceythe entered Harvard University, but an attack of tuberculosis compelled him to leave without his degree. He returned to the West, making his home at New Albany, Indiana, a little town just across the Ohio river from Louisville. A year later Willson joined the editorial staff of the Louisville Journal, and together he and Prentice courted the muse and defended the cause of the Union. Willson's masterpiece, The Old Sergeant, was
THE OLD SERGEANT [From The Old Sergeant and Other Poems (Boston, 1867)] The Carrier cannot sing to-day the ballads With which he used to go, Rhyming the glad rounds of the happy New Years For the same awful and portentous Shadow That overcast the earth, And smote the land last year with desolation, Still darkens every hearth. And the carrier hears Beethoven's mighty death-march Come up from every mart; And he hears and feels it breathing in his bosom, And beating in his heart. And to-day, a scarred and weather-beaten veteran, Again he comes along, To tell the story of the Old Year's struggles In another New Year's song. And the song is his, but not so with the story; For the story, you must know, Was told in prose to Assistant-Surgeon Austin, By a soldier of Shiloh; By Robert Burton, who was brought up on the Adams, With his death-wound in his side; And who told the story to the Assistant-Surgeon, On the same night that he died. But the singer feels it will better suit the ballad, If all should deem it right, To tell the story as if what it speaks of Had happened but last night. "Come a little nearer, Doctor—thank you—let me take the cup: Draw your chair up—draw it closer—just another little sup! Maybe you may think I'm better; but I'm pretty well used up— Doctor, you've done all you could do, but I'm just a-going up! "Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain't much use to try—" "It will never do, old comrade, for a soldier to say die!" "What you say will make no difference, Doctor, when you come to die." "Doctor, what has been the matter?" "You were very faint, they say; You must try to get to sleep now." "Doctor, have I been away?" "Not that anybody knows of!" "Doctor—Doctor, please to stay! There is something I must tell you, and you won't have long to stay! "I have got my marching orders, and I'm ready now to go; Doctor, did you say I fainted?—but it couldn't ha' been so— For as sure as I'm a Sergeant, and was wounded at Shiloh, I've this very night been back there, on the old field of Shiloh! "This is all that I remember: The last time the Lighter came, And the lights had all been lowered, and the noises much the same, He had not been gone five minutes before something called my name. 'Orderly Sergeant—Robert Burton!'—just that way it called my name. "And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so slow, Knew it couldn't be the Lighter—he could not have spoken so— And I tried to answer, 'Here, sir!' but I couldn't make it go; For I couldn't move a muscle, and I couldn't make it go! "Then I thought: It's all a nightmare, all a humbug and a bore; Just another foolish grape-vine "But it came, sir, notwithstanding, just the same way as before: 'Orderly Sergeant—Robert Burton!'—even plainer than before. "That is all that I remember, till a sudden burst of light, And I stood beside the River, where we stood that Sunday night, Waiting to be ferried over to the dark bluffs opposite, When the river was perdition and all hell was opposite!— "And the same old palpitation came again in all its power, And I heard a Bugle sounding, as from some celestial Tower; And the same mysterious voice said: 'It is the eleventh hour! Orderly Sergeant—Robert Burton—it is the eleventh hour!' "Doctor Austin!—what day is this?" "It is Wednesday night, you know." "Yes—to-morrow will be New Year's, and a right good time below! What time is it, Doctor Austin?" "Nearly Twelve." "Then don't you go! Can it be that all this happened—all this—not an hour ago! "There was where the gunboats opened on the dark rebellious host; And where Webster semicircled his last guns upon the coast; There were still the two log-houses, just the same, or else their ghosts— And the same old transport came and took me over—or its ghost! "And the old field lay before me all deserted far and wide; There was where they fell on Prentiss—there McClernand met the tide; There was where stem Sherman rallied, and where Hurlbut's heroes died— Lower down, where Wallace charged them, and kept charging till he died. "There was where Lew Wallace showed them he was of the canny kin, There was where old Nelson thundered, and where Rousseau waded in; There McCook sent 'em to breakfast, and we all began to win— There was where the grape-shot took me, just as we began to win. "Now, a shroud of snow and silence over everything was spread; I should not have even doubted, to this moment, I was dead— For my footsteps were as silent as the snow upon the dead! "Death and silence! Death and silence! all around me as I sped! And behold, a mighty Tower, as if builded to the dead— To the Heaven of the heavens, lifted up its mighty head, Till the Stars and Stripes of Heaven all seemed waving from its head! "Round and mighty-based it towered—up into the infinite— And I knew no mortal mason could have built a shaft so bright; For it shone like solid sunshine; and a winding stair of light, Wound around it and around it till it wound clear out of sight! "And, behold, as I approached it—with a rapt and dazzled stare— Thinking that I saw old comrades just ascending the great Stair— Suddenly the solemn challenge broke of—'Halt, and who goes there!' 'I'm a friend,' I said, 'if you are.' 'Then advance, sir, to the Stair!' "I advanced! That sentry, Doctor, was Elijah Ballantyne! First of all to fall on Monday, after we had formed the line! 'Welcome, my old Sergeant, welcome! Welcome by that countersign!' And he pointed to the scar there, under this old cloak of mine! "As he grasped my hand, I shuddered, thinking only of the grave; But he smiled and pointed upward with a bright and bloodless glaive: 'That's the way, sir, to Head-quarters.' 'What Head-quarters!' 'Of the Brave.' 'But the great Tower?' 'That,' he answered, 'Is the way, sir, of the Brave!' "Then a sudden shame came o'er me at his uniform of light; 'Ah!' said he, 'you have forgotten the New Uniform to-night— Hurry back, for you must be here at just twelve o'clock to-night!' "And the next thing I remember, you were sitting there, and I— Doctor—did you hear a footstep? Hark! God bless you all! Good by! Doctor, please to give my musket and my knapsack, when I die, To my Son—my Son that's coming—he won't get here till I die! "Tell him his old father blessed him as he never did before— And to carry that old musket"—Hark! a knock is at the door! "Till the Union—" See! it opens! "Father! Father! speak once more!" "Bless you!"—gasped the old, gray Sergeant, and he lay and said no more! |
|
