Poem In Your Pocket Day --- Belated

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I missed it this year, but belatedly here is the poem that someone sent me for it.


Shiloh
(Herman Melville, 1862)

Skimming lightly, wheeling still,

         The swallows fly low

   Over the field in clouded days,

         The forest-field of Shiloh—

   Over the field where April rain

   Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain

   Through the pause of night

   That followed the Sunday fight

         Around the church of Shiloh—

   The church so lone, the log-built one,

   That echoed to many a parting groan

            And natural prayer

      Of dying foemen mingled there—

   Foemen at morn, but friends at eve—

        Fame or country least their care:

   (What like a bullet can undeceive!)

         But now they lie low,

   While over them the swallows skim,

         And all is hushed at Shiloh.