Little Giffen of Tennessee

Out of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls as dire,
Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene,
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen!)
Spectre such as we seldom see,
Little Giffen of Tennessee!

“Take him--and welcome!” the surgeon said;
“Much your doctor can help the dead!”
And so we took him and brought him where
The balm was sweet on the summer air;
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed--
Utter Lazarus, heel to head!

Weary war with the bated breath,
Skeleton boy against skeleton Death,
Months of torture, how many such!
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch!
Still a glint in the steel-blue eye
Spoke of the spirit that would not die,
And didn’t nay, more! in death’s despite
The crippled skeleton learned to write!
“Dear mother,” at first, of course; and then,
“Dear captain”--inquiring about “the men.”
Captain’s answer--“Of eighty and five,
Giffen and I are left alive!”

“Johnston’s pressed at the front, they say!”
Little Giffen was up and away.
A tear, his first, as he bade good-by,
Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye;
“I’ll write, if spared.” There was news of a fight,
But none of Giffen. He did not write!

I sometimes fancy that were I king
Of the princely knights of the Golden Ring,
With the song of the minstrel in mine ear,
And the tender legend that trembles here,
I’d give the best, on his bended knee,
The whitest soul of my chivalry,
For Little Giffen of Tennessee!