The Vision of Death

The moon was high in the autumn sky,
The stars waned cold and dim,
Where hoarsely the mighty Oregon
Peals his eternal hymn;
And the prairie-grass bent its seedy heads
Far over the river's brim.

An impulse I might not defy,
Constrain'd my footsteps there,
When through the gloom a red eye burn'd
With fix'd and steady glare;
And a huge, misshapen form of mist
Loom'd in the midnight air.

Then out it spake: "My name is Heath!"
Thick grew my blood, and chill —
A sense of fear weigh'd down my breath,
And held my pulses still;
And a voice from that unnatural shade
Compell'd me to its will.

"Dig me a grave! dig me a grave!"
The gloomy monster said,
"And make it deep, and long, and wide,
And bury me my dead."
A corpse without sheet or shroud, at my feet,
And rusted mattock laid.

With trembling hand the tool I spann'd,
'T was wet with blood, and cold,
And from its slimy handle hung
The gray and ropy mould;
And I sought to detach my stiffen'd grasp,
But could not loose my hold.

"Now cautiously turn up the sod;
Gor's image once it bore,
And time shall be when each small blade
To life He will restore,
And the separate particles shall take
The shape which first they wore."

Deeply my spade the soft earth pierced,
It touch'd the festering dead;
Tier above tier the corpses lay,
As leaves in autumn shed;
The vulture circled, and flapp'd his wings,
And scream' d, above my head.

O, then I sought to rest my brow,
The spade I held, its prop;
"Toil on! toil on!" scream'd the ugly fiend,
"My servants never stop!
Toil on! toil on! at the judgment-day
Ye 'll have a glorious crop!"

Now, wheresoe'er I turn'd my eyes,
'T was horrible to see
How the grave made bare her secret work,
And disclosed her depths to me;
While the ground beneath me heaved and roll'd
Like the billows of the sea.

The spectre skinn'd his yellow teeth —
"Ye like not this, I trow:
Six thousand years your fellow-man
Has counted me his foe,
And ever when he cursed I laugh'd,
And drew my fatal bow.

"And generations all untold
In this dark spot I've laid —
The forest ruler and the young
And tender Indian maid;
And moulders with their carcasses
Behemoth of the glade.

"Yet here they may no more remain;
I fain would have this room:
And they must seek another rest,
Of deeper, lonelier gloom;
Long ages since I mark'd this spot
To be the white man's tomb.

"Already his coming steps I hear,
From the east's remotest line,
While over his advancing hosts
The forward banners shine:
And where he builds his cities and towns,
I ever must build mine."

Anon a pale and silvery mist
Was girdled round the moon:
Slowly the dead unclosed their eyes,
On midnight's solemn noon.
"Ha!" mutter'd the mocking sprite, "I fear
We 've waken'd them too soon!

« Now marshal all the numerous host
In one concentred band,
And hurry them to the west," said he,
"Where ocean meets the land:
They shall regard thy bidding voice,
And move at thy command."

Then first I spake — the sullen corpse
Stood on the gloomy sod,
Like the dry bones the prophet raised,
When bidden by his God;
A might company, so vast,
Each on the other trod.

They stalk'd erect as if alive,
Yet not to life allied,
But like the pestilence that walks,
And wasteth at noontide,
Corruption animated, or
The grave personified.

The earth-worm drew his slimy trail
Across the bloodless cheek,
And the carrion bird in hot haste came
To gorge his thirsty beak;
But, scared by the living banquet, fled,
Another prey to seek.

While ever as on their way they moved,
No voice they gave, nor sound,
And before and behind, and about their sides,
Their wither'd arms they bound;
As the beggar clasps his skinny hands
His tatter'd garments round.

On, on we went through the livelong night,
Death and his troop, and I;
We turn'd not aside for forest or stream
Or mountain towering high,
But straight and swift as the hurricane sweeps
Athwart the stormy sky.

Once, once I stopp'd, where something gleam'd,
With a bright and star-like ray,
And I stoop'd to take the diamond up
From the grass in which it lay;
'T was an eye that from its socket fell,
As some wretch toil'd on his way.

At length our army reach'd the verge
Of the far-off western shore;
Death drove them into the sea, and said,
"Ye shall remove no more."
The ocean hymn'd their solemn dirge,
And his waters swept them o'er.

The stars went out, the morning smiled
With rosy tints of light,
The bird began his early hymn,
And plumed his wings for flight:
And the vision of death was broken with
The breaking up of night.