"Will not these days be by thy poets sung": Poems of the Anglo-African and National Anti-Slavery Standard, 1863–1864
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FOR THE ANTI-SLAVERY STANDARD.
Adelphian Institute, Norristown, Pa.
NOT ONE HATH DIED IN VAIN.
Not a warrior went down to the grave in vain,
Not one, not one,[2]
Of all the thousands in combat slain
By the deadly rain,
The fearful, terrible, leaden rain,
That hissed and thundered along the plain,
When the fiends of war held a carnival,
And Death was the guest that danced with all
On the fields of Gettysburg.[3]
Not a hero for freedom hath died unwept,
Not one, not one;
Tears, bright tears for the brave are kept;
And where they slept—
Wounded and mangled, in stillness slept—
When the shadows of death o'er their eylids crept,
There Love hath been with her calm sweet spell,
And her heart's best gift for each one that fell
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not one among them shall be forgot,
Not one, not one,
Who on that fearfully hallowed spot
Bore well his lot—
The soldier's perilous weary lot;
From deeds like theirs the forget-me-not
Of fame springs up, and its fadeless bloom
Shall wreath with garlands each lowly tomb
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not one of their number shall be unblessed,
Not one, not one;
But the grateful hearts of the long oppressed,
Their wrongs redressed,
By them in courage and strength redressed,
Shall sing in chorus and call them blessed,
And reverently pause by each grave to tell
How bravely, how nobly their brothers fell
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not a soldier shall sleep in the grave unsung,
Not one, not one;
Fame hath a trumpet and Love a tongue,
That hearts now wrung—
With grief and sorrow and anguish wrung
Shall use, to teach to the harps unstrung
The lofty speech that is due in praise
Of those who gathered their greenest bays
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not one for his country has died in vain,
Not one, not one!
The God of Justice, whose equal reign
O'erlooks the plain—
The blood-stained, terrible battle plain—
Has care for the souls of the heroes slain.
His love takes note of them, every one,
He knoweth whose duty was nobly done
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not one went down to the dull dark grave,
Not one, not one,
But rising victorious from out the wave
Of life they gave—
The crimson, mysterious tide they gave—
For the noble cause they were strong to serve,
Their souls passed on to the higher ranks
Of the shining hosts that o'erlooked our flanks
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not a sacrifice we can make is vain,
Not one, not one,
That lifts us up from a lower plane
To greet the reign—
The mild, but firm and impartial reign—
Of Justice, that rose with a star-eyed train
From the dust, the thunder and battle-smoke,
When the light on her Bride, sweet Freedom, broke
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not a tyrant sits on a royal throne,
Not one, not one,
That shall not yield to the power that's grown
From the field alone—
That blood-stained, terrible field alone—
And tremble, while struggling to save his own
From the withering blaze of that glorious star,
That rose o'er the din and the shock of war
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not a traitor bears in the strife a part,
Not one, not one,
That shall not feel in his soul the smart
Of the hero's art,
The high, o'ermastering, enduring art
By which our freemen with ready dart
Drove back the haughty, rebellious horde,
That met them proudly with fire and sword
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not a patriot lives, or a hero soul,
Not one, not one,
That shall not yield to the strong control
Of thoughts that roll,
In solemn rapture and stillness roll,
Toward the distant but bright'ning goal
Of hopes that oft in the warrior rose,
Triumphant over his human woes,
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not a wounded soldier is suffering there,
Not one, not one,
Who bore with a hero heart his share
In the fierce warfare,
The deadly, terrible, wild warfare,
For the cause of Liberty trembling there,
But feels to say in his heart, "Thank God,
The blood of freemen redeemed the sod
On the fields of Gettysburg."
Not a brother is wearing the bondman's chain,
Not one, not one,
That shall not thrill with the hope again,
That their sigh and pain,
Their life-long sigh and their torturing pain,
Will die, and their chains be rent in twain.
In the bloody field and the carnage dire,
They see the glimmer of Freedom's fire
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not a year shall pass, or a circling age,
Not one, not one,
That truth shall not in her cause engage
To turn the page,
The gloriously written immortal page,
Traced there in blood and in battle rage,
Upon the fearfully "foughten field,"
When the Bride of Justice stood forth revealed
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Not a land is known, or a distant clime,
Not one, not one,
That shall not thrill with their solemn chime,
Or sing in rhyme,
In echo's sweet and melodious rhyme,
The songs that greeted the halls of time,
And sounded in triumph along the dells
When Freedom was ringing her marriage bells
On the fields of Gettysburg.
Notes
- Arabella C. Bush (1830–?), poet and teacher. Relatively little is known about Bush's life. Born in New York, she moved with
her family to Pennsylvania at some point before 1853. In 1857 she and her elder sisters founded the Adelphian Institute, a
seminary for women in Norristown (Theodore W. Bean, ed., History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania [Philadelphia: Everts and Peck, 1884], 763). In her preface to Voices of the Morning (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1865), Bush gives the names of twenty-three "papers and magazines which have from time to time
published my articles, either as contributions or selections" ([2]). The fact that her list includes the Liberator, the National Anti-Slavery Standard, and the Banner of Light suggests that she had some sympathy with abolition, women's rights, and unorthodox faith. The 1870 census shows that she
moved to Belvidere, New Jersey, with her teacher sisters; she is described as coprincipal of another girls' school (the Belvidere
Academy). Census records for 1910 suggest that she lived into her eighties.
- The awful new scale of Civil War battles forced Americans to grapple with the meaning of individual deaths and disappearances in the context of mass slaughter. Writers like Bush explored and reasserted the significance of single deaths at a moment when the first national cemeteries were being established; this phrase may show the same impulse toward recovery and acknowledgment at work.Historian Drew Gilpin Faust observes that the Battle of Gettysburg "made the dead—and the problem they represented—starkly visible to northern citizens"; the dedication ceremony that took place at Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863, "acknowledged a new public importance for the dead" (This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War [New York: Knopf, 2009], 99, 101). But the problem of the missing remained. How could the dead be acknowledged if they remained "unknown"? Bush's poem offers the consolation of a divine perspective: "not one" soldier's death was missed by God, and each one furthered the Union's cause.
- Confederate general Robert E. Lee's advance into Pennsylvania provoked panic in the North in June 1863. Confederate and Union
armies clashed at Gettysburg. The battle took place July 1–3, 1863, and news of Lee's defeat reached Washington, DC on July
4. As Northerners celebrated, enormous ambulance trains carried thousands of casualties toward city hospitals. By the end
of the battle, 23,000 Union soldiers and 28,000 Confederates were killed, wounded, or missing (James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The American Civil War [London: Penguin, 1991], 664).
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