History & Politics

The Muster: Suggested by the Two Days’ Review at Washington

by Herman Melville 1819–1891

From Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War

History & Politics

The Abrahamic river--
Patriarch of floods,
Calls the roll of all his streams
And watery mutitudes:
Torrent cries to torrent,
The rapids hail the fall;
With shouts the inland freshets
Gather to the call.

The quotas of the Nation,
Like the water-shed of waves,
Muster into union--
Eastern warriors, Western braves.

Martial strains are mingling,
Though distant far the bands,
And the wheeling of the squadrons
Is like surf upon the sands.

The bladed guns are gleaming--
Drift in lengthened trim,
Files on files for hazy miles--
Nebulously dim.

O Milky Way of armies--
Star rising after star,
New banners of the Commonwealths,
And eagles of the War.

The Abrahamic river
To sea-wide fullness fed,
Pouring from the thaw-lands
By the God of floods is led:
His deep enforcing current
The streams of ocean own,
And Europe’s marge is evened
By rills from Kansas lone.

✦ ✦ ✦

Dated May, 1865.

MLA

Melville, Herman. “The Muster: Suggested by the Two Days’ Review at Washington.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/melville/44/.

Chicago

Melville, Herman. “The Muster: Suggested by the Two Days’ Review at Washington.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/melville/44/.

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