AMERICAN WAR POETRY An Anthology

EDITED BY Lorrie Goldensohn

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK CONTENTS

PREFACE XXI ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XXV

THE COLONIAL WARS, I746-I763 1

LUCY TERRY [PRINCE] Bars Fight 3

ANONYMOUS The Song of Braddock's Men 4

JOEL BARLOW, from the Columbiad, book 5 "Progress of the Colonies. Troubles with the natives." 5 "Hostilities between France and England extended to America. Braddock's defeat." 6

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR, I776-I783 9

THOMAS PAINE Liberty Tree 11

PHILIP FRENEAU The American Soldier 12 Jeffery, or, The Soldier's Progress 12 A New York Tory, to His Friend in Philadelphia 14 VI CONTENTS CONTENTS VII

ANONYMOUS MARTIN ESPADA Burrowing Yankees 15 The Other Alamo 40

PHILLIS WHEATLEY RALPH WALDO EMERSON To His Excellency General Washington 16 Ode, Inscribed to W. H. Channing 42

JOHN PIERPONT JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Warren's Address to the American Soldiers 17 The Angels of Buena Vista 45

RALPH WALDO EMERSON JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Concord Hymn 18 from The Biglow Papers 50

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW HENRY DAVID THOREAU Paul Revere's Ride 19 "When with pale cheek and sunken eye I sang" 55

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR Black Samson of Brandywine 23 THE CIVIL WAR, 1861-1865 56 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS THE WAR OF l8l2 25 The Voice of Memory in Exile, from a Home in Ashes 59

PHILIP FRENEAU HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW On the Conflagrations at Washington 27 The Arsenal at Springfield 59

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Defence of Fort McHenry 30 Barbara Frietchie 61

JOHN NEAL The Battle Autumn of 1862 64 The Battle of Niagara, from canto IV 32 HERMAN MELVILLE

JOEL BARLOW The March Into Virginia, Ending in the First Manassas 65 Advice to a Raven in Russia 33 Ball's Bluff 67 A Utilitarian View of the Monitor's Fight 68 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Shiloh 69 Old Ironsides 36 The College Colonel 69

THE ALAMO AND THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN JULIA WARD HOWE WAR, 1836 AND 1846-1848 37 The Battle Hymn of the Republic 70

JOAQUIN MILLER WALT WHITMAN The Defense of the Alamo 39 Cavalry Crossing a Ford 71 VIII CONTENTS CONTENTS IX

By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame 72 ALLEN TATE Come Up from the Fields Father 72 Ode to the Confederate Dead 94 A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown 73 ELIZABETH BISHOP The Wound-Dresser 74 From Trollope's Journal 97 Reconciliation -J-J ROBERT PENN WARREN O Captain! My Captain! 77 A Confederate Veteran Tries to Explain the Event 98 HENRY TIMROD ROBERT LOWELL Charleston 78 For the Union Dead 99 The Unknown Dead 80 ALAN DUGAN JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST Fabrication of Ancestors 102 In Louisiana 81 JAMES DICKEY EMILY DICKINSON Hunting Civil War Relics at Nimblewill Creek 103 "It feels a shame to be Alive" 83 ANDREW HUDGINS THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH The Road Home 104 Accomplices 84 Fredericksburg 85 THE INDIAN WARS, 1620-1911 108 INNES RANDOLPH WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT The Rebel 85 The Disinterred Warrior 113 CHARLOTTE FORTEN GRIMKE JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER The Gathering of the Grand Army 87 Metacom 114 SIDNEY LANIER ANONYMOUS Laughter in the Senate 89 "Prayer of a warrior" (Assiniboine) 119 AMBROSE BIERCE "Cherokee war-song," version 1 120 The Confederate Flags 90 "Cherokee war-song," version 2 120 LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE "Song for a fallen warrior" (Blackfeet) 120 A War Memory 92 "I will arise with my tomahawk" (Passamaquoddy) 121

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR "Warpath song" 122 The Unsung Heroes 92 "Last song of Sitting Bull" (Teton Sioux) 122 X CONTENTS CONTENTS XI

WALT WHITMAN PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR From Far Dakota's Canons 123 The Conquerors: The Black Troops in Cuba 145

ANONYMOUS "The taking of life brings serious thoughts" (Pima) 124 THE WAR OF THE PHILIPPINES, 1899-1902 I46 "War song" (Papago) 124 WILLIAM VAUGHAN MOODY ARCHIBALD MACLEISH On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines 148 Wildwest 126 from Ode in a Time of Hesitation, 9 149 JAMES WRIGHT EDGAR LEE MASTERS A Centenary Ode 128 Harry Wilmans 150 CARTER REVARD Parading with the V. F. W. 129 WORLD WAR I, I917-I918 152 DUANE NIATUM AMY LOWELL A Tribute to Chief Joseph 131 Patterns 154 WILLIAM HEYEN ROBERT FROST The Steadying 132 Not to Keep 157 JOY HARJO CARL SANDBURG I Give You Back 133 Buttons 158 RAYNA GREEN Grass 158 Coosaponakeesa (Mary Mathews Musgrove Bosomsworth) 135 WALLACE STEVENS WENDY ROSE ' The Death of a Soldier 159 Three Thousand Dollar Death Song 136 EZRA POUND LOUISE ERDRICH from Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, IV, V 159 Dear John Wayne 138 SARA TEASDALE Captivity 139 There Will Come Soft Rains 161

T. s. ELIOT THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR, 1898 142 Triumphal March—1931, from Coriolan 162 STEPHEN CRANE War Is Kind 143 The Battle Hymn 144 XII CONTENTS CONTENTS XIII

ALAN SEEGER MURIEL RUKEYSER I Have a Rendezvous with Death 163 Sestina, from Letter to the Front 187

The Aisne (1914-15) 164 PHILIP LEVINE

ARCHIBALD MACLEISH On the Murder of Lieutenant Jose del Castillo 189 Memorial Rain 166 WORLD WAR II, I94I-I945 191 E. E. CUMMINGS i sing of Olaf 168 WALLACE STEVENS from Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction 194 LOUISE BOGAN To My Brother Killed: Haumont Wood: October, 1918 169 H.D. [HILDA DOOLITTLE] from Trilogy 195 MALCOLM COWLEY Chateau de soupir, 1917 170 MARIANNE MOORE In Distrust of Merits 197 ERNEST HEMINGWAY Champs d'Honneur 172 LANGSTON HUGHES Riparto d'Assalto 172 Beaumont to Detroit: 1943 199

MURIEL RUKEYSER RICHARD EBERHART from Poem out of Childhood 173 The Fury of Aerial Bombardment 200

LINCOLN KIRSTEIN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, 1936-1939 175 Snatch 201

ROBINSON JEFFERS DP's 202 Sinverguenza 178 GEORGE OPPEN

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY Survival: Infantry 203 Say That We Saw Spain Die 178 from Of Being Numerous, 14,18,19,20 204

GENEVIEVE TAGGARD KARL SHAPIRO To the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade 179 Troop Train 206

ALEXANDER BERGMAN RANDALL JARRELL To Eugene P. Loveman 180 Losses 208 Prisoners 209 EDWIN ROLFE [FISHMAN] The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner 209 City of Anguish 182 First Love 187 XIV CONTENTS CONTENTS XV

Protocols 209 LUCIEN STRYK The Truth 210 The Pit 236

JOHN CIARDI LOUIS SIMPSON Elegy Just in Case 212 Carentan O Carentan 237 A Box Comes Home 214 Memories of a Lost War 239

THOMAS MCGRATH The Battle 240

Remembering That Island 214 W. S. MERWIN

GWENDOLYN BROOKS The Dachau Shoe 241 Negro Hero 215 JEROME ROTHENBERG

ROBERT LOWELL Dos Oysleydikn (The Emptying) 242 Memories of West Street and Lepke 217 LAWSON FUSAO INADA

HOWARD NEMEROV from Legends from Camp, VI, X, XV 244

Grand Central with Soldiers, Early Morning 219 CHARLES SIMIC A Fable of the War 219 Prodigy 245

IFF 220 JAMES TATE Redeployment 221 The Lost Pilot 247

ELEANOR ROSS TAYLOR NORMAN DUBIE After Twenty Years 222 Aubade of the Singer and Saboteur, Marie Triste: 1941 249

RICHARD WILBUR MARY JO SALTER First Snow in Alsace 223 Welcome to Hiroshima 252

JAMES DICKEY LEE ANN RORIPAUGH The Firebombing 224 Hiroshima Maiden 254

JANE COOPER from Heart Mountain, 1943 256

The Faithful 233 DIANE THIEL

ANTHONY HECHT The Minefield 257 Still Life 233

ALAN DUGAN Portrait from the Infantry 235 XVI CONTENTS CONTENTS XVII

THE KOREAN WAR, 1950-1953 259 HAYDEN CARRUTH On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War THOMAS MCGRATH in Vietnam 290 Ode for the American Dead in Asia 262 RICHARD HUGO WILLIAM MEREDITH On Hearing a New Escalation 291 A Korean Woman Seated by a Wall 263 DENISE LEVERTOV HAYDEN CARRUTH Weeping Woman 292 On a Certain Engagement South of Seoul 264 At the Justice Department 292 KEITH WILSON PHILIP APPLEMAN The Circle 266 Peace with Honor 293 Waterfront Bars 268 ROBERT BLY Memory of a Victory 269 Counting Small-Boned Bodies 296 REG SANER ALLEN GINSBERG They Said 270 from Iron Horse 296 Flag Memoir 270 W. S. MERWIN WILLIAM CHILDRESS The Asians Dying 299 Trying to Remember People I Never Really Knew 273 GEORGE STARBUCK ROLANDO HINOJOSA Of Late 300 The January-May 1951 Slaughter 275 Jacob Mosqueda Wrestles with the Angels 276 WALTER MCDONALD Hauling Over Wolf Creek Pass in Winter 301 MYUNG MI KIM Under Flag 278 JIM NYE Dead Weight 302 SUJI KWOCK KIM The Chasm 281 DAVID HUDDLE Fragments of the Forgotten War 282 Work 303 Haircut 303 THE VIETNAM WAR, I964-I975 285 Vermont 304

ROBERT LOWELL SHARON OLDS The March 1 289 May 1968 304 The March 2 289 XVIII CONTENTS CONTENTS XIX

DOUG ANDERSON W. D. EHRHART Infantry Assault 306 Beautiful Wreckage 324 Papasan 306 How It All Comes Back 325 Purification 307 Finding My Old Battalion Command Post 326

JOHN BALABAN BRUCE WEIGL Thoughts Before Dawn 308 What Saves Us 327 April 30,1975 309 Burning Shit at An Khe 328

HORACE COLEMAN The Last Lie 330

OK Corral East 310 RAY A. YOUNG BEAR

BASIL PAQUET Wa ta se Na ka mo ni, Vietnam Memorial 331

Basket Case 310 BARBARA TRAN It Is Monsoon at Last 311 The Women Next Door 332

GREG KUZMA BAO-LONG CHU Peace, So That 312 Mother's Pearls 333

FRANK STEWART Black Winter 313 EL SALVADOR, BOSNIA, KOSOVO, AFGHANISTAN, AND THE DALE RITTERBUSCH PERSIAN GULF 335 Choppers 315 CAROLYN FORCHE GERALD MCCARTHY The Colonel 338 The Hooded Legion 317 WENDY ROSE YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA The Day They Cleaned Up the Border: El Salvador, Starlight Scope Myopia 318 February 1981 339

Tu Do Street 319 JOSEPH BRODSKY Bui Doi, Dust of Life 320 Bosnia Tune 340 Facing It 321 JOHN MATHIAS D. F. BROWN Bogomil in Languedoc 342

When I Am 19 I Was a Medic 322 DALE RITTERBUSCH DAVID CONNOLLY A Thousand Cranes 343 The Little Man 323 XX CONTENTS

ADRIAN OKTENBERG "It was an open-air market" 344

DALE JACOBSON Night Vision of the Gulf War 345

WENDY BATTIN Mondrian's Forest 347

KRISTI GARBOUSHIAN from The Ribbon on Hell's Tree, X 349

J. D. MCCLATCHY Jihad 351

GALWAY KINNELL When the Towers Fell 353

ADRIENNE RICH The School Among the Ruins 358

TONY HOAGLAND The Kind of Shadow That Calls Out Fate 361

C. K. WILLIAMS Shrapnel 362

ELEANOR WILNER Found in the Free Library 364

BRIAN TURNER Here, Bullet 366

BIOGRAPHIES IN BRIEF 367 FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND PERMISSIONS 405