A Second Review Of The Grand Army Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AAABCCCCCBCB DDDDDEFFFFFE GGGECCCE HHHIJJJK LLLAMMMA AAAKNNNK GGOGBPPPB QQQBAAAB

I read last night of the grand reviewA
In Washington's chiefest avenueA
Two hundred thousand men in blueA
I think they said was the numberB
Till I seemed to hear their trampling feetC
The bugle blast and the drum's quick beatC
The clatter of hoofs in the stony streetC
The cheers of people who came to greetC
And the thousand details that to repeatC
Would only my verse encumberB
Till I fell in a reverie sad and sweetC
And then to a fitful slumberB
-
When lo in a vision I seemed to standD
In the lonely Capitol On each handD
Far stretched the portico dim and grandD
Its columns ranged like a martial bandD
Of sheeted spectres whom some commandD
Had called to a last reviewingE
And the streets of the city were white and bareF
No footfall echoed across the squareF
But out of the misty midnight airF
I heard in the distance a trumpet blareF
And the wandering night winds seemed to bearF
The sound of a far tattooingE
-
Then I held my breath with fear and dreadG
For into the square with a brazen treadG
There rode a figure whose stately headG
O'erlooked the review that morningE
That never bowed from its firm set seatC
When the living column passed its feetC
Yet now rode steadily up the streetC
To the phantom bugle's warningE
-
Till it reached the Capitol square and wheeledH
And there in the moonlight stood revealedH
A well known form that in State and fieldH
Had led our patriot siresI
Whose face was turned to the sleeping campJ
Afar through the river's fog and dampJ
That showed no flicker nor waning lampJ
Nor wasted bivouac firesK
-
And I saw a phantom army comeL
With never a sound of fife or drumL
But keeping time to a throbbing humL
Of wailing and lamentationA
The martyred heroes of Malvern HillM
Of Gettysburg and ChancellorsvilleM
The men whose wasted figures fillM
The patriot graves of the nationA
-
And there came the nameless dead the menA
Who perished in fever swamp and fenA
The slowly starved of the prison penA
And marching beside the othersK
Came the dusky martyrs of Pillow's fightN
With limbs enfranchised and bearing brightN
I thought perhaps 'twas the pale moonlightN
They looked as white as their brothersK
-
And so all night marched the nation's deadG
With never a banner above them spreadG
Nor a badge nor a motto brandishedO
No mark save the bare uncovered headG
Of the silent bronze ReviewerB
With never an arch save the vaulted skyP
With never a flower save those that lieP
On the distant graves for love could buyP
No gift that was purer or truerB
-
So all night long swept the strange arrayQ
So all night long till the morning grayQ
I watched for one who had passed awayQ
With a reverent awe and wonderB
Till a blue cap waved in the length'ning lineA
And I knew that one who was kin of mineA
Had come and I spake and lo that signA
Awakened me from my slumberB

Bret Harte (francis)



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