That showed no flicker, nor waning lamp,
Nor wasted bivouac fires.

And I saw a phantom army come,
With never a sound of fife or drum,
But keeping time to a throbbing hum
Of wailing and lamentation:
The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill,
Of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville,
The men whose wasted figures fill
The patriot graves of the nation.

And there came the nameless dead,--the men
Who perished in fever swamp and fen,
The slowly-starved of the prison-pen;
And, marching beside the others,
Came the dusky martyrs of Pillow's fight,
With limbs enfranchised and bearing bright;
I thought--perhaps 'twas the pale moonlight--
They looked as white as their brothers!

And so all night marched the Nation's dead
With never a banner above them spread,
Nor a badge, nor a motto brandished;
No mark--save the bare uncovered head
Of the silent bronze Reviewer;
With never an arch save the vaulted sky;
With never a flower save those that lie
On the distant graves--for love could buy
No gift that was purer or truer.